Staying Human
by TC591
Summary: Sequel to "Being Human". Eveything seems to have settled in to a routine in the bat cave. But then something happens that threatens to pull them all apart. Can they deal with it together or will they lose everything? I'm not good at descriptions & not giving too much away. Destiel established. NO COPYRIGHT INTENDED.
1. Chapter 1

**I got an idea for a sequel to my story "Being Human" so this is that, might need to read that one first. Thanks! - Taylor.**

* * *

"Because I'm _teaching_ you, that's why." Dean smiled as Cas exhaled and took a step back from him. "What's wrong with that?"

"Maybe I want to lead?" Cas looked up to the ceiling when Dean started talking again.

"And you will, but you need to know the steps first." Dean laughed at how frustrated Cas was getting. "Babe..." he stepped forward and took Cas' face in his bringing it back to look at him, he could see the frustration and it was cute but Dean didn't want to antagonise him, he just wanted to teach him. Dean sighed and leaned up to kiss Cas on the forehead, "Okay." He shouted over his shoulder. "Bailey!"

"What are you doing?" Cas looked to Dean as he took a step backwards and they heard Bailey's footsteps down the hall.

"Teaching you to lead." Dean smiled as Bailey appeared and raised her eyebrows at them. "Come and dance with me, kid." Dean put his hand out and Bailey just looked at him. "What?"

"What's he going to do to me?" She pointed to Dean while looking at Cas and Dean sighed looking back to Cas himself.

Cas smiled. "I have no idea."

"No, come on." Dean gestured his hand to Bailey and she crossed the room, passing the big table to the other end of it where the pair stood. When she moved Dean turned to Cas. "Out the way, you moan." Cas opened his mouth in shock and a little smile as he stood back, letting Bailey passed. "You watching?" Cas looked at him and smiled nodding and Dean paused a little before Bailey looked between them and then punched Dean in the arm. "What?" He looked to her and then cleared his throat. "Right, yeah. Dancing. Cas, I meant watch our feet, watch what I do."

He took Bailey's waist with his right hand and hers in his left.

Dean spoke as they dance. "I go forwards, she goes backwards, three, four. Right, two, three, four. Back, two, three, four. Left, two, three, four. Repeat, two, three, four." He looked up to Cas as they continued and Dean counted while Cas mouthed it. They slowed when they heard shouting in the distance and the three of them turned to see Sam following Hayley quickly out of the doorway.

"Well, that's hardly my fault Sam, is it?"

"It is if you won't talk to me!" He followed her and Bailey took a step towards Dean as they stormed passed and Cas stepped back.

"Everything I say you don't want to hear, you can't have it both ways, Sam!"

She ran up the little stairs to the exit and Sam exhaled.

"I'd better..." Bailey trailed off.

"Yep." Dean let her go and Sam moved to let her passed and follow Hayley out of the base. The door slammed and then a few seconds later it opened and closed again.

Sam ran his fingers through his hair and shuffled a little on his feet before thinking about punching the wall but not after reminding himself it was solid concrete.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dean turned to Sam. He shook his head as he started storming back to his room. "Want to shoot something?"

Sam stopped and turned. "Yeah."

.

Sam was standing with his gun aimed at the poster. Dean was stood in the next lane. They never spoke for a few minutes while they let off rounds and stress.

Sam emptied the chamber of his gun and lowered it to reload as Dean emptied his. He looked to Dean. "Cas doesn't have to stay up stairs, you know?"

"I know." Dean released the clip. "He knows that too." He started loading the gun as Sam slowly loaded his. "But he also gets that sometimes it has to be just me and you." He smiled to Sam and aimed his gun. "He's the first one to offer to wait."

"Hayley too." Sam pushed the clip in and aimed the gun, he sighed and lowered it again. "She won't talk to me."

Dean kept firing as he spoke. "Something she's not saying?"

"Yeah." Sam raised the gun again. "I don't know what though."

Cas was in the kitchen when he heard the door to the base open and close. He stood there as he heard voices - Hayley and Bailey's.

"I know, I know, but I can't tell him!"

"Well, you have to. There's no debate here, he needs to know and you know he does."

Cas felt this was wrong immediately, he walked out of the kitchen calling out for them. "Hayley, I am in here!" They had stopped beside the big table, Hayley putting the car keys on the table as Bailey dumped carrier bags. They turned to look, half shocked, half confused. "I thought you should know that before you kept talking." Cas explained. "I will just go." He walked towards the doorway.

"Wait, Cas." Hayley sighed as he turned. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" He suddenly tried to think, had he done something wrong by announcing his presence? He hadn't meant to, he had meant to do the right thing.

"You could have stood and listened but you didn't." Bailey looked at her sister while she turned and got a little emotional.

"It was obvious from your conversation that you were going to discuss something that you have trusted Bailey with and you are worried about telling Sam. Whatever it is, if I knew I would only know by being deceitful and I would not want to do that. And if I did know I would then have to keep it from Sam." He looked up the nodded a little. "And Dean." He looked back. "I could not do that either."

Suddenly Hayley burst into tears as Sam and Dean came back into the room. Seeing her in tears Sam ran to her immediately. "Hayley? What's wrong, are you hurt?" She shook her head, still looking at Cas.

"Cas, what's wrong with her?" Sam looked back to him and then to her. Bailey rolled her eyes and took the bags into the kitchen.

"I do not know. I do not know what I did wrong." Cas' eyes were wide with confusion and he turned to Dean. "I honestly do not."

She sniffed and tried to find air to talk. "You, you didn't do anything wrong." She grabbed Sam's hand. "I need to talk to you." She pulled him towards the doorway but stopped beside Cas and kissed his cheek. "Thank you." She walked away and Sam followed her, looking at Cas confused.

They watched them go then turned to look at each other. "What was all that about?"

Cas shrugged. "I told you, I have no idea."

Bailey appeared in the doorway from the kitchen. "They'll be a while, back to dancing?"

"You know what that was about?" Dean pointed to her when she shook her head and then zipped her mouth. "You do!"

"Sister privilege. Come on," Dean raised his eyebrows, "you know I'm not going to tell you."

Dean sighed and lowered his arm. "Dammit."


	2. Chapter 2

_Cas was in a meadow, weirdly since he knew he had fallen asleep in bed with Dean. The smell of grass and barbecues filled his nose while the sounds of laughter and distant traffic drifted passed his ears. It was all too pleasant for him to mind at all. Dogs barked, the breeze lightly touched his skin, horns tooted and he smiled before he was grabbed at the waist from behind. He turned his head to the right to see Dean smiling at him and a little breathless._

_"Hey, babe." He leaned in for a kiss. _

_"Hey, this is a surprise." Dean took a step to the side and let go of Cas as they turned to face each other._

_"Yeah I just dropped Sam off and I thought I'd grab a few minutes with my favourite guy before work." Cas smiled and Dean leaned down as the dog approached him. He took the frisbee from it's mouth and scratched it as it was more interested in Dean that the toy now. "And how is my favourite guy, then?" Cas let his mouth fall open as Dean carried on talking to the dog. He then stood up and threw the frisbee. "Go on, Bones." The dog bounded away after it and Dean looked back to Cas who crossed his arms and looked away. "Oh come on, I was kiddin'?"_

_He laughed as he tried to pull Cas' arms away from him and Cas tensed up trying to pull away and refusing to look at him. "No, that is fine." Cas turned away. Dean tried to hold onto him but Cas got away and made a break for it so Dean chased him. Bones ran back over and dropped the frisbee to dance around them trying to join in while Cas whirled away from Dean and Dean just tackled him to the ground. "Get off me." Cas tried to look away, still feigning hurt as Dean shifted on top of him. Dean kissed his cheek and Cas pulled away so Dean kissed his neck. "Stop." Dean did it again. "That is not fair."_

_Dean hummed in response since he knew he was going to win then Bones jumped up, pressing his paws into Dean's back and Dean groaned. "Bones, get lost." He picked up the frisbee and lobbed it, the dog lingered and then chased after it. "Damn traitor."_

_"I am his favourite guy." Cas huffed but he had stopped squirming under Dean._

_"Oh really?" Dean raised himself up to look at Cas._

_"Yes." Cas nodded, a smile betraying his cheek._

_"Well, he can get in line." Dean kissed Cas and then grunted in frustration, he pulled back to look at Cas then around at the people in the park. "It's a good thing we're out in public because right now..." He looked back at Cas and bit his lip._

_"Yes, I can feel that." Cas laughed at Dean's embarrassed chuckle. "And you need to go to work." Dean looked as Cas showed him his watch and he scrambled to his feet. "Hey!" Cas put his hand out and Dean pulled him to his feet. "Thank you."_

_"See you later?" Dean kissed Cas and then looked at him before doing it again. Cas laughed into the kiss when Dean tried to slyly adjust himself. He walked away. "Don't laugh at me." He smirked. Cas turned as Bones appeared and he took the frisbee then got a fright when a weight rushed into his back. He felt the lips against his ear and he immediately smiled wider. "Say it."_

_Cas turned his head a little. "I love you." Dean smiled and kissed Cas' ear before saying it back. When Bones dropped the frisbee in front of Cas and ran to Dean Cas bent down to pick it up and he heard a frustrated grunt so he turned to look as he straightened back up. "What?" He watched Dean walk away talking to himself and shaking his head. Cas shouted on Bones and smiled to himself._

Then something shifted against Cas and he woke up, in bed with a weight against his back and light snoring filling the air. He didn't open his eyes at first he just put his right hand and arm over Dean's that was draped across him. Then he felt it. It was pressed into the bottom of his back and Cas opened one eye. It instantly sent shivers down his front. He couldn't help but push against him and it did nothing but make the need more urgent. Dean's snoring stopped and he paused still rolling his hips just a little unable to stop himself.

"That's a hell of a way to wake a guy up." Dean muttered in a heavy croak that made Cas close his eyes again.

"I am sorry." Cas turned his face into the pillow.

Dean moved his right hand up to Cas' hip, letting Cas' slip to the bed, and bucked gently towards him. "Don't be." Cas let out a moan as Dean reached around and rubbed Cas making him buck back a little harder. He put his hand back to hold onto Dean's bum, encouraging him. "Babe, you're killing me." Dean stuttered into Cas' right ear as he pushed against Dean, trying not to hurt him.

Cas reached and tugged Dean's boxers down at the front, stopped rocking, and stroked Dean against his back making the hunter moan unexpectedly. Dean pulled at Cas' underwear at the back and flicked his hand around the front to unhook it from there too.

"Like this?" Dean mumbled as he kissed Cas' neck and Cas breathlessly nodded.

Dean nudged down the bed and Cas positioned him then brought that hand up to press against the headboard as Dean took over. He wet his hand before taking over and buckled slowly and gradually into Cas. "Is it... too awkward?" Cas spoke through a moan.

"No, just," Dean exhaled, "just lean back babe, or forward, your shout." Cas leaned backwards, Dean holding himself up with his left hand but hooked it around Cas neck onto his body. "Bend your- these." He tapped Cas' leg and he brought them up slightly. "That's it." Cas was flat against Dean's chest, Dean kissed the right side Cas' neck and he brought his right hand up to rub in Dean's hair.

Dean ended up heavy-breathing into Cas' neck instead of kissing and then he reached down to Cas and stroked his bare cock. Cas moaned not sure what way to go, he bucked forward into Dean's hand and then, when Dean stroked up he rolled harder down on Dean, even using his left hand as leverage against the headboard of the bed while Dean's thrust into him.

"Dean..." Cas moved harder and faster, letting his head fall further back onto Dean and Dean moved to talk in his ear.

"Fuck Cas, like that." Dean picked up his speed. "Don't stop."

Cas slightly shook his head and pushed into Dean harder. It was becoming too much now, Cas' hand in Dean's hair fell to Dean's shoulder, and he held on just as he had done the first time they had ever met. "Dean, Dean, I-" He breathed heavy and screwed up his brow, it was almost painful it was so intense. "I cannot-"

Dean whispered in his ear, breathless and deep but confident. "You can. Just let it..." He moaned. "Let it happen." Cas nodded, biting his lip as he kept moaning through it, "I got you, okay?" Cas nodded again. "Cas..." Dean moaned. "Damn, Cas..."

Dean moaned his name and Cas let go of a breath he was holding which turned into a moan and he felt it hit his stomach as he rocked into it. "De-" Cas' rocking got slower as he rode it out and finished coming all over Dean's hand and the sheets as well as himself. "Dean..." Dean mumbled a reply and Cas realised he was right behind him. He called Cas' name into his neck and then slowly stopped. "Wow." Cas admitted.

"Yeah." Dean chuckled and kissed the back of Cas' neck before they realised they were stuck together with sweat.

Dean wiped his hand on Cas' hip. Cas turned his head and gestured in question.

"It's your stuff."

Cas looked at his hip in disgust. "Still."

"What was your dream about? Must have been good."

Cas turned a little to look at him. "Just you."

"Really?" Cas nodded and they kissed. "Well, I vote for that to be my alarm every day." Cas laughed as Dean ran his hand up Cas' bum and twitched out before they both moaned in disgust. "I hate that bit."

Dean tucked himself into his boxers and Cas turned to look at him. "Hey!" Dean opened his left eye. "Go."

Dean closed his eye and groaned before hauling himself out of bed and trying to find something to clean up with. "The first thing we're doing today is buying a big stack of towels." He found a dirty one lying in the corner from Cas' bath the night before and chucked it over to him.

"But we already have plenty of towels?" Cas looked down as he wiped it all up, starting with his hip.

"No, a pile, just for in here." Dean huffed and threw himself back on the bed while Cas smiled. "This big." Cas turned to look at Dean, whose eyes were closed again, holding his arms far apart. He let them fall to the bed and sniffed. "Did you see?"

Cas laughed. "Yes, I saw."

He nodded and turned towards Cas in the bed. "Big, big pile."


	3. Chapter 3

When Dean and Cas emerged from the bedroom they went for a shower and when they eventually got clean - you know how it is - they muttered between themselves as they headed to the kitchen. When they got to the main room they stopped to look at Hayley and Bailey sitting there at the table, just sitting and not saying anything.

"Hey, everything alright?" It was then that they heard banging coming from the kitchen. Bailey shook her head a little when Hayley didn't even look up. "Sam in the kitchen?" Dean pointed and Bailey nodded.

Cas pulled out a car across the table. "Do you have any cigarettes left, Bayley?"

Dean got to the doorway and watched Sam attacking his smoothie maker. "Something wrong?"

Sam sighed and looked up, not at Dean. "No, there's nothing wrong. Nothing I can't fix." He leaned back down and Dean's eyebrows raised.

"Okay, just asking." He went to cross the room to the fridge to get the coffee on when Sam stood up and turned around, brushing his hair back off of his face.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't." Dean turned to look as Sam rambled on angrily. "What, you think that I can't fix my own smoothie maker? That I need you to solve my problems? That I can't cope with life on my own?" Dean turned back to the fridge to pick up the milk as Sam seemed to be talk to the ceiling. "That I've been mucking up my life ever since I was born and I always blamed it on Dad or demons or angels or Lucifer?"

Dean glanced to the side as he found a cup to use. "I don't know the right answer so I'm going to just..." He half nodded and half shook his head before Sam grunted and turned back to his smoothie maker.

In the main room Hayley had moved to one of the bookcases, not to read anything, just to stand there staring at the floor.

"Are you okay, Hayley?" Cas asked wondering why she had moved over there to stand and do the same thing she was doing sitting across from him.

She slowly moved her head a little towards him. "Okay?" Her eyes moved to him. "Am I okay?" Cas looked to Bailey who just smiled wearily telling him he was on his own. "No, I'm not okay." Her eyes filled up and she tried to control it. "I'm really not."

Cas stood and walked over to her but only got as far as the other side of the table before Bailey took his cigarette from him, he paused but then kept walking to her and hugged her as she began to cry.

Cas looked at his cigarette as Bailey held it as she had taken it, she wasn't smoking it, she was smoking her own while she was reading a book.

Dean and Sam turned a little when they heard Hayley crying and Sam sighed before turning back to the smoothie maker. Dean blinked in surprise as the coffee pot finished and he pointed to the doorway. "Aren't you going to-"

"She's fine." Sam cut him off and then managed to get an electric shock.

"Alright," Dean walked forward as Sam shook his hand, dropped the screwdriver to the floor and swore at the wall, the ceiling, his hand, the smoothie maker and everywhere else, "turn it off first, genius." Dean turned the switch off and looked to Sam.

Hayley appeared in the doorway. "Are you okay, baby?" She looked to Sam and then Dean.

Sam grunted at the ceiling. "I'm fine!"

She jumped. "I was only asking."

"Well don't!" He shouted, she got emotional again and Bailey appeared in the doorway glaring at Sam, Cas behind her, ready to berate him. "What?" He looked to them all. "What are you all looking at?"

"Listen Sam," Dean started and Sam turned to look, angrily, "I don't know what's going on but this isn't like you." Dean's face showed the confusion he felt seeing his brother talk to his girlfriend like that and that she was so upset but she stood there and took it. "You would never talk to her like that and she would never take it either." He pointed. "Look at her Sam, tell me that it doesn't cut you that you did that?" He pointed again, Sam's face relaxing a little. "_I said look!_"

Sam turned and saw only the back of Hayley's head as she was buried in Bailey's shoulder and Cas looking at her face, which he could see was filled with concern.

He walked towards her and then looked back to Dean before lowering his face to look at the floor. "I'm sorry." He mumbled and pushed passed walking away down the corridors. Bailey held Hayley and Cas looked around him, he thought he understood. Dean sighed and walked towards them. "I'll talk to him, will you be alright?" Hayley nodded and Bailey smiled at Dean reassuringly.

Cas put his hand out to Dean as he went to walk passed him. "Uh..."

"What, babe?" Dean stopped looking at him.

"Can I try? I think I understand." Dean's face screwed up and Cas caught Hayley's eye as she lifted her head to look at him, her crying paused. He looked back to Dean. "Please?"

Dean looked to Hayley and then back to Cas. "Sure." He kissed him. "Don't take shit from him." Cas nodded. "I can still kick his ass." Cas smiled a little at that as he walked down the corridor.

Sam wasn't in his room, Cas heard the water running in the bathroom and Cas decided Dean wouldn't give them enough time for him to wait so he knocked the door. No answer. "Sam?" Nothing. "Sam, you know as well as I do that Dean will come looking in about ten minutes so you may as well let me say what I have to say before he does." There was nothing. "I will leave you." He turned to walk and the door unlocked.

Sam poked his wet head and hair out. "I'm trying to shower, I'm not Dean, we can't share." He looked to the side.

Cas laughed a little. "That is not what I was going to suggest."

Sam sighed. "Fine, but I'm still going to shower. Give me a few seconds." Cas nodded and Sam shut the door. Cas waited ten seconds before opening the door and closing it behind him. "What do you want, Cas?"

The room was slowly filling up with steam and Cas stared at the door as he heard the water running behind him. "I know what is troubling you."

Sam scoffed. "You've no idea."

"You know, when Dean and I started dating I had no idea what was going on, it was not planned, it just happened. We talked about what we wanted and we gave it a shot, neither of us knew if it would work and we could only imagine the trials ahead of us but we wanted to try."

"You mean after you disappeared a couple of times and almost got us all killed?"

Cas laughed and looked down, Sam turned to look and smiled a little before carrying on washing. "Yes, admittedly we did not have everything straight from the get go, we got our wires crossed and said things we didn't mean. Everything went wrong from the beginning, it was a mess actually." Cas shook his head wondering how they ever got to where they were and knowing the answer instantly.

"Cas, can you tell me a little bit," Cas turned his head a little as he looked up, "nothing dirty or inappropriate but just like a little about you two?"

"Well, I do not know what to say." Cas panicked, what if he said too much or not enough?

"Dean said you kissed him?"

"Did he? Well, that is not _strictly_ true." Cas laughed. "He almost kissed me first and then he became anxious that he was pushing me into it so I guess we kissed each other." He shrugged. "I do not know exactly when or how it had built up for us but I know that it came to a head when we went to a bar and picked up a couple of women."

Cas heard Sam clamber out of the shower and he grabbed a towel from the rail. "Did you have a one-night stand?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, it was that night that I suppose told the both of us what we really wanted. But I guess it was more of a shock to Dean than me because he freaked out." Cas' face fell a little. "We have talked about it since and I understand now but it hurt at the time."

"And that's why you took off?" Cas nodded. "When did you two decide you were going to jump in, to go from freaking out and running in opposite directions to holding hands and really trying it despite everything?"

Cas thought about it and smiled as Sam stood to the side of him, covered and rubbing a towel into his hair, Cas turned to look at him thinking back. Sam smiled back looking at him. "We decided that twice, actually." Sam screwed up his brow. "Remember when we were in the store after I came back with coffee?" Sam nodded. "Dean told me that if I was going to leave he wanted me to do it then."

"What do you mean?" Sam switched the towel to his other hand and rubbed his neck and hair again.

"He wanted something more than what we had already shared." Sam put his hand up. "I am not going to tell you." Cas shook his head, smiling. "He wanted more and he told me that if I was not going to give him that, if I was going to leave again then he would rather I got in my car and did it right then."

"He couldn't handle having the possibility of something real dangled in front of him then taken away?" Cas nodded. "What did you say?"

"I took the basket from him and said we should hurry before you decided to get a mini-fridge too then I walked away to find you. It was implied I was not going anywhere."

Sam laughed and Cas opened the door for him. They walked along the hall to Sam's room and stopped in the door way. "What about the second time?"

Cas leaned on the doorway. "The second time I had heard you guys talking that night," Sam inhaled as if to apologise and Cas put his hand out, "I know, I know." Sam smiled. "But I panicked thinking about the possibility of putting you two in danger so I brushed him off and tried to pull back but, you know Dean, he was having none of it." Sam laughed and Cas turned around leaning back against the doorway while Sam found underwear. "He cornered me and told me if I wanted something casual that was fine."

"Really?" Sam sounded like it was becoming too much information.

"Yes, but he did not mean that, it was his way of trying to get me to talk to him, to snap out of it and tell him what was wrong and..." Cas looked to the side thinking about it, "I think he was trying to tell me he did not want casual either."

"How do you know that?"

Cas thought back to the way Dean had looked at Cas in the shower and the way he had touched him, there was something almost disgusted in it. But also, telling Cas that he'd rather that then nothing.

"I guess you had to be there." He muttered, a little upset that Dean had ever touched him like that.

"I'm glad I wasn't." Sam pulled his pants on.

Cas laughed. "Yes, so am I. Anyway I told him what was wrong and that no, I did not want casual and he told me that he was..." Cas sighed. "He was scared," Sam walked to the doorway pulling his t-shirt over his head and Cas turned to look at Sam again, "we both were. But it was okay because we knew we wanted it and we would be scared and we would screw up but we would keep on trying because," he shrugged, "it would be worth it and we could not _not_ try." Sam sighed and rubbed his face. "Do you not think it will be worth it?"

Sam looked to him. "There are a million reasons not to do this."

"But there only needs to be one to do it anyway." Cas titled his head a little. "And you know it is there or you would not be acting like this."

Sam inhaled and nodded, getting a little emotional.

"Sam?" They heard Dean's voice. "Cas?"

"Quick, punch me." Cas whispered and Sam laughed.

"Don't tell him." Sam asked.

Cas shook his head in promise."It is not my place." They shared a little moment. "In here." Cas directed out the doorway.

Dean appeared looking at them both and, seeing them both fine, he relaxed. "You're not fighting." They looked to each other shaking their heads while Dean looked at Sam more. "And you've changed, hair..." Dean trailed off. "Did you shower?"

Sam nodded. "Well done, Sherlock." He patted Cas on the shoulder as he walked passed. "Thanks man."

Dean looked to Cas. "What's going on? Did you see him change?" Dean looked after him.

Cas laughed. "Yes, I was in the shower with him." He walked away down the hall after Sam.

Dean paused and then pointed as he followed. "That's not funny." He caught up to Cas and pulled him around, he paused and spoke low and genuinely worried. "Is, uh, is he okay?"

Cas nodded and smiled. "He will be."


	4. Chapter 4

Sam and Hayley left the base, taking Bailey's car, and went for a drive somewhere to talk and get outside.

"Come on!" Bailey pulled at Dean's arm. "Alcohol..."

Dean laughed. "One of us has to drive."

"I will do it." Cas smiled as Dean turned. "Alcohol..." Cas mimicked Bailey.

Dean smiled at him and then back to Bailey. "We could get a taxi?"

She shrugged. "I don't care who drives, as long as it ain't me." She grabbed her coat before heading outside.

Dean mumbled an answer and looked to Cas as he stopped next to him. "I do not mind driving?"

Dean leaned in. "I have a feeling Bailey is on the pull tonight and I don't want you to have to drive my drunk-ass home."

Cas took a step towards Dean. "I happen to like your drunk-ass." He reached and grabbed Dean's bum pulling him closer and they mumbled some back and forth through kissing.

"Oi, loverboys?" Dean and Cas pulled apart to look as Bailey stood looking at them. "Come on!"

She gestured with her head and they followed her out of the base.

.

Sitting on the hood of Bailey's car beside a river Sam and Hayley were eating pretzels and drinking soda.

"I'm sorry." Sam turned to her. "I don't know why I behaved like that."

"I do." She smiled. "You're scared but you're not the only one." She looked out at the river. "Do you think we can do this?"

Sam thought about everything Cas had said then nodded. "Yeah," Hayley looked back to him, "I really do."

She smiled. "Me too."

.

The three took the Impala after all, Dean insisted on driving there since Cas had to drive back. Bailey bounced about in the back seat, tapping her fingers furiously on the leather to an imaginary beat.

Cas looked back. "Are you okay?"

She brushed her jet black hair back behind her ear to reveal the white stud in the top. "Yeah, just anxious to get out and not be chasing something."

"Except tail." Dean smirked and she hit him on the shoulder. "What? Tell me you're not going for it tonight?" He looked back to her and she shrugged. "Exactly." He turned to Cas. "Told you so."

Cas smiled a little but looked between them. He saw a connection, a similarity maybe. Bailey was young and had entered into hunting because of her brother. She enjoyed hunting and was damn good at it, she could hunt alone easily if she wanted to but she had a sister in Hayley, blood or not, they got into it together and wouldn't have it any other way. Bailey had charm and often sweet talked her way into someone's bed, the sex of that person wasn't much of a factor to her although she mostly went for women, she wasn't short on her vices and she never questioned it - her life was how she had chosen it to be no matter how it had all started. She often said that she couldn't imagine herself in a normal job or life with a partner and everything else and why would she chose that when she had what she did - a gun in one hand, a drink in the other and a woman on her arm. A different one every night. Never boring.

Cas thought back to when he first knew of Dean, long before he pulled him from Hell. When he was first told of Dean and he was asked to watch over the brother's - not one or the other - both. 'Watch over the Wincesters, Castiel my brother, let us know immediately if something threatens them further.' Castiel remembered enquiring if he should act on any danger and the look he got in reply. He was to watch, as always, nothing more. He was fascinated by them both for different reasons. Sam was adamant he was going to be a lawyer and marry Jessica and he would have if Dean hadn't had that ninth whiskey that night.

Castiel had watched it over, when he began watching the Winchesters and listening to them argue over what lives they could have had he had wanted to retrace it, to the defining point, to see who was right. Was it Dean that had 'ruined' Sam's life? Or was it Azazel? Was it John who had decided Dean's path for him? Or did it stretch further back to Mary, Samuel or beyond? Castiel soon realised that the chain of events was started thousands of years before, as with anything really. But he had seen that night when Dean had called his Dad for the nineteenth time and had his fifth whiskey. He heard him talking to himself, arguing really, about whether he should try Sam.

'No, he walked out so what does he care? But he's my brother. He wanted out and to be a bigshot lawyer, leaving it all to me so that's what he gets.'

Sixth whiskey.

'Who does he think he is, after everything I did for him, I could have had a normal life and been a normal kid but noooooo.'

Seventh whiskey.

'I had to stay and take care of Sam. Stay there Dean, like a dog watching a, a, a hamster. Yeah, a hamster.'

Eighth whiskey.

'We don't need him. I'll find dad myself. Stupid giant hamster. Ugh. Damn, idiot. Even if I did ask, he wouldn't come.'

More pacing.

Ninth whiskey.

'Fine, I'll ask and then I can say I asked.'

That's when he grabbed his keys and headed outside. Castiel watched thinking about driving while intoxicated but he seemed unfazed by it all in his movements while he drove steadily through the night. But that action had only been set up because of everything that had preceded it and Castiel had tried to show Dean that it wasn't his fault by taking him back to before he was born and proving to him that he couldn't have changed what happened.

It wasn't his fault and Cas knew he would never truly believe it.

That was part of why he was fascinated by Sam - his plans and dreams. But he was fascinated by Dean because he was strange to Castiel, in the same way that Sam was he supposed.

Both of them were not what they seemed - Sam was your average college kid - steady job, steady girlfriend and bright future - but he held this darkness inside of him that never showed. Then there was Dean who was the stereotypical 'guy' - different women every night, gun on his hip, whiskey on tap and music blaring through the open car window - except he held this goodness in him.

Now that's not to say that every 'good kid' has evil lurking and every player with a specific music taste has a heart of gold but for these two it was like the ying and yang symbol. Darkness with a spot of light and light with a spot of dark.

That was part of why he was fascinated by Dean - he always surprised people in everything he did. Whether it was the choice no one thought he would make or the words no one ever expected him to say. He never let expectations govern his actions.

Cas wondered, if Dean missed being that guy and since he wasn't that guy anymore, who was he?

"Cas?" Dean shook Cas' shoulder and he came back to himself. The back seat was empty and they were parked outside a bar. "You alright?"

"Yes," Cas blinked a few times and looked around, "yes, I apologise."

"Did you zone out?" Dean smiled at him fondly.

"Sorry." Was all Cas could say before he opened his door and climbed out.

Dean's smile fell a little at that and he did the same. Bailey was already in the bar having ran ahead to the restroom. They walked to the bar and Dean leaned on it while Cas stood, still thinking. Dean smiled to the barman as he walked over. "Can I have two beers and, Cas what do you want?"

Cas thought about that. Two beers. One for Bailey and one for Dean."Soda, please. I am going to sit down." He wandered away from the bar and found a booth while Dean looked back before looking back to the barman and confirming that was all.

Bailey bundled into the booth opposite Cas and they smiled. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"Nothing." He barely said and he knew he was giving off vibes that said otherwise but he couldn't get it out of his head. The words Dean had said to him on the stairs that night.

_'I prodded and I pushed and I hurt and I ripped you apart. I corrupted your purpose, Cas, and then I took what was left of you for my own.'_

Is that what Cas had done to Dean? Had he torn him apart and put him back together the way he had wanted him? He had told Dean, in rushed breath, that he hadn't wanted him to change, but had that been enough?

At the bar Dean was thinking himself, he still had no idea what was going on with Sam and Hayley but he was working on not sticking his nose into every corner of his life now because he could get mad at Dean all he liked but he couldn't just take off like before, because he'd be tearing away from all of them now. So they worked on stepping back and stepping in when they had to and when they needed to and something told Dean it was one of those times that his stepping in was done - now he just had to wait for Sam to come to him. After all, all of Sam's business wasn't Dean's too anymore - just like all of Dean's wasn't Sam's.

Cas was overthinking something again and Bailey was acting weird, those were his priorities at the moment. So he picked up the drinks and wandered back to the booth.

They drank for a little while, going back a forward to the bar and the toilet. Eventually Cas went to the bar and Dean leaned forward to her. "Are you alright?"

She smiled that smile Dean knew by now wasn't strictly kosher. "Course." He nodded a little, he knew her almost as well as he knew himself. She and Cas had a bond that none of them could explain, if he had to guess Dean would attribute it to their connection through angels but he would put money down that they couldn't explain it either. Regardless, Dean knew Bailey - she was like how he used to be and there was no denying that; she wasn't _exactly_ like him but when she got that look in her eye and smiled that way Dean knew she wasn't ready to talk about it yet. So he dropped it and she was thankful that he did. "Go see what's wrong with him for me, will you?" He gestured his head to the bar and she nodded before shuffling out of the booth.

He watched her walk to the bar and then looked back to his drink.

"Hey." Bailey said as she plopped herself to lean on the bar beside him, upper arms touching.

He turned and smiled. "Hello."

"So, your boyfriend sent me to do his dirty work." Cas raised his eyebrows. "Wants to know what's making you clench."

Even after this long Cas had to think about that one. "I do not-"

"He wants to know what's wrong. You look like someone smoked your last cigarette." Cas looked down at the bar when he understood. "And don't bullshit me." He looked back up and she leaned in a little. "I can see right through you, brother."

He smiled. "I like that."

"What?" She turned to the barman and just nodded so he turned back to grab them drinks since Cas hadn't ordered yet.

"Brother." He nudged into her.

She smiled. "Well you practically are. I mean," she looked down, "I know that Sam thinks of you as a brother," Cas looked to her in surprise, "and me and Hayley are sisters regardless so I suppose the logic is there... If you squint." They laughed. "No but, if none of us were related or dating I would still call you that, Cas."

"Really?" She nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Me too." She waited and he sighed. "I keep thinking of how much Dean has changed since I met him, especially since we started dating."

She shifted a little. "Don't you like who he is?"

Cas almost jumped. "Are you kidding? I love him." She smiled. "I do not think I could love him anymore." She lifted her head. "But what if he has changed because of me?"

"Of course it's because of you." He looked troubled at that. "He's changed because he's in a long-term relationship, he's changed because he's with a guy, he's changed because he's in love," Cas smiled a little, "he's changed because he's in all of that and still hunting, he's changed for a million reasons Cas, all of them you. That doesn't mean they aren't good changes or that he's changed against his will. It means that his life has changed and he's grew around it. It's a good thing. Dean will always be Dean, except that sometimes he would rather have a beer," she gestured to it as the barman put the two bottles down, "than whiskey and so many things I won't be able to tell you because I didn't know him before."

"Thank you." He smiled, a little embarrassed.

"Besides, I bet you've changed since you met him."

Cas widened his eyes. "That is an understatement."

Dean was sitting at the table when a guy stopped at the table. "Excuse me?"

Dean looked up. "Yeah?"

The guy just looked to Dean for a second or two then smiled. "Thought so." He sat down on Dean's left and held out his hand. "Lyle."

Dean looked at him and then shrugged. "Dean." He shook his hand.

Cas and Bailey were waiting at the bar for Cas' drink, which it seemed the bartender forgot about for a few minutes and then he apologised and grabbed a glass before filing it with soda.

"Excuse me?" A red-head at the left of Castiel butted into their conversation. "Sorry, but it was getting harder and harder to work it out," she pointed between them, "are you two together?"

Cas and Bailey looked at each other before they laughed and Cas spoke. "No, no we are not. We are siblings."

"Oh, I see it now!" She gestured to their heads. "The hair."

They shared a knowing look and Cas went to scoop up the drinks. "I will leave you two to it."

The girl put out her hand and then looked to Bailey. "Sorry, I was actually..." She trailed off.

"I know." Bailey laughed. Cas looked at her. "She likes _you_, dumbass."

"Oh!" Cas turned and then laughed. "Oh, I apologise, I am actually with..." They turned to see Dean and some guy in the booth. Cas and Bailey looked to each other trying not to laugh before turning and leaning on the bar. "I would like to to observe this."

Bailey nodded and spoke to the red-head. "The one nearest the wall." She still looked confused as to why they were smiling. "Hasn't been gay long." Bailey waved her hand using those relatively insensitive and not politically correct words just to be quick and looked back to the booth.

"So Dean, can I buy you a drink?" Lyle smiled.

Dean laughed, a little flush of embarrassment glowing over his face. "I'm actually not here alone."

"Oh, the girl that was here? I'm sorry, I thought you were gay!" He looked genuinely surprised.

Dean opened his mouth to speak and then shook it. "Wrong both times." He pointed to the bar and Lyle turned to look, the pair of them just noticing that they were being watched as Cas waved once and Bailey laughed turning to hide her face in Cas' coat.

Lyle waved back and turned back to Dean. "He's yours? He's hot!"

Dean nodded. "Tell me about it."

"Well, I'll leave you to it." He shuffled out of the booth.

"No worries." Dean smiled and looked to Cas. He then winked and then just smiled before looking back to his drink.

Bailey patted Cas on the shoulder. "Go get him, tiger."

He rolled his eyes and pushed at her before leaving her and the red-head to converse harmlessly at the bar.

He walked over and stopped at the booth. "Is this seat taken?"

Dean looked up trying not to laugh. "Yeah."

"Oh well, I had better go then." Cas still stood there.

"You'd better." Dean smirked.

"Is your boyfriend a jealous one then?"

Dean narrowed his eyes a little and then shook his head gently. "Not as much as I'd like."

"Really?" Cas smile dropped.

"To other people it might seem like he's not jealous because he doesn't care," Cas opened his mouth to protest and Dean cut him off, "but I know it's just because we're confident enough in our relationship to not let that stuff _seriously_ bother us." He gestured his head and Cas slid into the booth, letting Dean take his right hand and missing the emphasis.

Cas squeezed it and inhaled. "You know, sometimes I get this feeling." Dean turned his head to look. "Like you are not close enough to me." Dean smiled. "It kind of hurts actually."

Dean shuffled up the bench until their thighs were touching. "Better?"

Cas nodded. "It will suffice, for now." He bit his lip and Dean kissed him.

When they pulled apart Dean looked over his face. "Ready to tell me?"

Cas sighed. "I was just overthinking stuff." Dean nodded. "I was freaking out that I have turned you into something your not."

"I've changed." Dean nodded. "But not into something I'm not, it's who I've always been I've just not had the circumstance to be so." He let go of Cas' hand and wrapped his arm around Cas' shoulders.

"You could have made your own circumstances." Cas whispered as he rested his right hand on Dean's thigh.

Dean shook his head. "I was waiting for you." Cas smiled. "It's all you, Cas." He brought his lips close to Cas' and looked down at them. "There is no version of this, where I'm this person or this happy, without you in it." He kissed him once, slowly, then pulled back to look at his lips again. "You've made it possible for me to be me. How can that ever be a bad thing?"

Cas let his head nudge back a little in surprise. "Dean..."

"Is this news to you?" Cas nodded. "It shouldn't be." Dean looked at the table. "I'm sorry." Cas only got more surprised. "I'm sorry that you didn't know that every day from the minute I..." He looked up and trailed off. "I can't even pinpoint when it became the truth but I'm sorry and I'll make sure you know it from now on."

Cas looked to the side, speechless, as Bailey sat. "You two are cute as hell." She shuffled in and widened her eyes. "And I hate you both for it." She smiled and then looked at Cas. "What's wrong?"

She looked to Dean who downed his drink. "I don't know." He smiled a little anxious.

He loosened his arm on Cas as if to let go and Cas brought his right hand across him to catch Dean's hand before it did. "Please do not let go," Cas muttered then looked to Dean, "ever?"

Dean swallowed and Cas raised his eyebrows. Dean nodded and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. "I won't." There was a pause where Cas relaxed, Bailey hated them both while she downed her drink and Dean wriggled in his seat. "Actually babe, I need to hit the head."

Cas laughed and closed his eyes embarrassed as he let go of Dean's hand and stood up to let him out.

.

"I hate everything!" Bailey exhaled as she downed her drink and slammed her head onto her arm lying on the table.

Dean and Cas laughed while they looked at her sitting across from them. "What's wrong? Having trouble with the ladies?" Dean teased.

She looked up. "Not after a chick tonight."

Cas and Dean looked to each other. "But you nearly always pick up a woman?" Cas leaned forward.

She shrugged. "Feel like a dude." Dean looked at her and wasn't buying it. "They're all either idiots or gay or st-st-stuttering weeds." Dean laughed. Bailey had a type and it wasn't shy.

Cas made a noise and Dean turned. It was an "Oo!" Like you do when something occurs to you or someone walks passed your booth and you grab their arm to stop them walking away. "Excuse me?" Dean and Bailey turned to see Lyle look at them all. "Hello, would you like to sit down?" He gestured to the empty seat across from him.

He looked to them all and Dean shrugged at him having no idea what was going on.

"Sure." Lyle slowly sat next to Bailey.

"This is Lyle." Dean offered. "Bailey," he pointed to her and they shook hands, "and Cas." The two guys shook hands. "Cas, what are you doing?"

"We require your assistance." Cas offered and Lyle looked suspicious. "No, not like that." He relaxed and Dean's whole face showed surprise that Cas had even realised how it sounded.

"Bailey here is looking for a..." He turned to her.

She was leaning on her left hand looking at the three guys. "Hook up."

Lyle looked to Dean. "I thought it was obvious that I'm gay?"

Dean looked away slightly embarrassed and Bailey smiled at him, loving every minute of what was happening.

"Yes," Cas leaned forward, "but she is, surprisingly, not very observant. She seems to be out of practice with men." Bailey opened her mouth ready to defend herself and looked to Dean who tilted his head a little and she closed her eyes agreeing that Castiel had a point. "You look like someone who can read people and know things almost right away."

"Except who's with who." Dean muttered, teasing him.

"In my defence, I was sitting over there," Lyle pointed to the far side of the bar that meant their booth couldn't be seen into unless you passed and looked, "and only noticed you when I was going to the restroom, sitting with her," he pointed to Bailey, "and he was at the bar." Dean laughed and put his hands out admitting defeat. Lyle leaned to Cas. "Had I known-"

Cas shook his head. "Will you help us?" Lyle thought about it, pulling on his oversized jumper. "And I will forgive you?" Cas smirked and Dean wondered if Cas knew he was being a little flirty. He put his hand under the table and squeezed Cas' thigh fully aware he was feeling a little possessive and completely negating what he and Cas had said about jealousy but it was worth it to see the twitch in Cas' shoulder, and the slight wriggle in his right hand on the table. He smiled, satisfied.

Lyle sighed. "Okay," he turned to Bailey and they all nudged up to listen to him, "first of all ignore the guy at my six o'clock," he looked to Cas, "your twelve," Cas looked and saw the man in the expensive suit and shoes looking around him, "the one head to toe in D&G, he thinks it attracts women. He's all money, money, money - you'll be a possession and not a person, he'll expect more than he deserves." Bailey nodded. "Guy at the bar, third from the end," Cas and Dean turned to look and then back, "he's on his third rum and coke but his ass has been in the toilet longer than it's been on that stood." They scrunched up their faces and Bailey shook hers. Cas felt Dean's hand slide up his thigh and he glanced to him silently asking what he was doing. "The two guys at the pool table are good looking but they've been using some disgustingly racist language when they think no one can hear so..." He looked to her and she shook her head in the way that wondered how he could even ask. "Exactly." He exhaled and looked around. "Let's get a drink and have a better look." He winked to her and they shuffled out of the booth.

Dean and Cas nodded to them as they went. Cas turned to Dean. "What are trying to do to me?"

Dean shrugged. "Didn't like the way you were looking at Lyle." He admitted and Cas' eyebrows raised. He screwed his eyes "I know, I know, what we were just saying about jealousy but it bothered me a little so I just wanted to see my effect on you," he looked back to Cas, "remind myself that no one else can do that."

Cas smiled and slid a little towards Dean. "I did not mean to look at him in any _way_, I am sorry." Dean nodded as they kissed and he felt better, idiotic but better.

.

Sam and Hayley pulled up to the base and saw that the car was gone. They sighed, letting some tension relieve them having been building up the courage to talk to everyone. Instead they parked and got out. When they walked into the base Sam put his arm around Hayley's shoulders and she looked up at him while rubbing his back. "Let's get some sleep." She nodded and they headed to bed.


	5. Chapter 5

In the bar Cas was dragging Dean out of the booth, Dean protesting that he hadn't had enough yet. Cas was laughing and hauled Dean to his feet, Bailey having left about half an hour ago with a guy she and Lyle had approved of. Dean and Cas waved to Lyle and the guy snacking on his neck and staggered into the parking lot.

"He said I was gay, can you believe that?"

Cas laughed, while he held Dean up and walked to the car, not in a straight line. "I wonder why."

Dean looked to him. "But he said that _before_ he knew about us." Dean scoffed.

Cas turned to him. "Dean, it is not something I would expect you to find offensive?"

"Oh nonono." Dean screwed up his face like he was upset. "No, I didn't mean that it was I just meant that it's weird that he could see the change in me."

Cas nodded. "I do not think it is as simple as you were heterosexual and now you are homosexual." Cas explained as he bumped Dean to lean against the car.

Dean pulled him close. "I know, I'm not homosexual, I'm _Cas_exual."

Cas smiled. "Exactly." They kissed and Dean reached down to rubbed Cas and Cas broke the kiss. "Dean, please stop doing that."

Dean looked hurt and pulled away. "Sorry."

Cas sighed. "I mean that you have been doing that all night and you are drunk." Cas opened the back door and gestured to put Dean inside. Dean nodded and crawled in.

"Hey!" He gestured as Cas bent down to look inside. "Come here."

"No." Cas raised his eyebrows when Dean tried to use his puppy eyes. They wouldn't work. "No!" Dean did it again. "Dean..." Cas sighed and then looked down. "Fine, five minutes." He crawled into the seat next to Dean who smiled and Cas shut the door after himself before glaring at Dean. "I hate you." Dean's mouth fell open. "You are much too happy with yourself."

Dean hooked his arm around Cas' shoulder and pulled him backwards to lying down. "Don't be mad."

"Dean, stop."

"Just want to lie here for a minute." Cas relaxed and let Dean turn him so that his back was to the seat and Dean's faced the front seats. "Don't like it when you're mad at me." He kissed Cas who kissed him back a second behind.

"I am not mad, I am frustrated." He kissed him again, a second behind. "You have been teasing me all night and now you are too drunk."

"Ah!" Dean smiled and Cas tried not to smile too. "But you manhandle me when I'm drunk." He smile letting his tongue touch the bottom of his top teeth. "I like it."

"Like what you are doing right now? Dean, come on. I can feel your-" He stopped and found his voice again, "I can feel that and your hand on my ass." He said all of that but his right hand still came up to cup Dean face before they kissed.

"Would you be mad..." Dean whispered against Cas' mouth, "if I told you," he kissed him again, "that," he touched his nose to Dean's then rushed the next bit, "I'm not as drunk as I'm making out I am."

He quickly hid his face in the left side of Cas' neck while Cas tried to get him to look at him. "What do you mean? Dean? Dean! Dean..." Dean had resorted to kissing Cas' neck. "Dean, I will get out this car right now if you do not look at me."

Dean stopped what he was doing and then sighed before pulling back to looking at Cas. "I'll admit I'm a little tipsy but when I'm drunk you get all protective and caring and I like it." He shrugged. "I'm sorry."

Cas thought about it for a minute and he wasn't mad, he was sad. "Am I really so cold?"

"What?" Dean's eyes widened. "No! Not at all." He paused. "I do wish you would be a little more, you know, but no I was just playing I didn't mean anything by it. I promise you, I didn't."

Cas nodded. "Okay, okay, I believe you. I would ask that you do not do that again, please." Dean nodded saying his apologies as Cas kissed him, they were both leaning on their arms to hold their head up but Dean took Cas' face in his hand, just kissing and Cas held Dean's side. After a while Cas pulled away. "I love you, you know that, right?"

Dean nodded. "Of course I do."

They started kissing again and eventually they turned so that Dean lay down and Cas lay on him, any moment that might have been had been ruined and they fell asleep like that without meaning to.

.

A few hours later Dean was woken by loud banging. Dean shot up, taking Cas with him who was still asleep against his chest. Dean looked to see Bailey standing there, cold and trying to get in the car. "Cas." Dean muttered and Cas stirred. "Cas, come on wake up, babe." Dean shook him gently and he woke up a little quicker than Dean usually woke him. "Bailey's at the door."

"Bailey?" He said and Dean gestured outside, Bailey waved and Cas looked back to Dean, not quite awake yet. "What?"

Dean laughed gently and ran his left hand through Cas' hair looking at him, lowering his voice. "Wake up for me, babe. Properly." Cas blinked a few more times and the mist seemed to clear. "You awake?" Cas finally saw Dean and smiled before nodding and mumbling. He then shuffled towards the door and Dean smiled to himself, waking up in the morning was worth it just to be able to do that.

Cas jumped out, it was still mostly dark and Dean clambered out too. "I thought you were going back to the base?" She asked stepping into place behind the open car door as Dean wandered to the passenger side and Cas rounded the car.

"We were but we just fell asleep." Cas stretched as he walked.

Bailey looked to the car. "Do I need to wipe the seat first?" Cas shut his door. "Touch a nerve?" Dean tilted his head and they both got in.

"What's the deal?" Dean turned to Bailey.

"Snores." Bailey shifted looking at the seat suspiciously and Dean decided to leave that there too. She's talk about it eventually. "Come on, before he wakes up!"

Cas smiled as he turned the engine on with a yawn. He pulled out of the space quietly as they drove into the street while the sky was on that precipice of day and night; when it's at it's darkest and just about to start to turn. After a few seconds Dean looked down at Cas' hand on his knee and then looked to Cas' face, he didn't look at Dean since he was getting ready to turn in the street but he smiled and Dean shifted a little closer on the seat to make it less of a stretch. He looked back and Bailey had settled against the seat, closing her eyes. Dean let Cas rest his hand there and didn't return the touch for two reasons, one - because Cas was driving and needed to be able to pull it away and, two - because it was nice to have Cas reach to him first and just enjoy it.

.

The three of them got out the car and Cas inhaled before he looked to Bailey, she looked as nervous as he did.

"Dean." Cas called and jogged around the car when Dean stopped and turned. Bailey rounded Dean slowly. "Listen, when we go in there, just..." He sighed and Dean looked to Bailey as she appeared behind him, between him and the bunker. "Just try not to react angrily before you think about it."

"Think about what?" He looked between the two. "You two already know?" Cas and Bailey didn't say anything. "How is it that I'm the last to know what's going on?"

He looked to Bailey. "Sister."

"Brother." He countered and she glared at him. He relaxed his face, he knew not to get pissy with her, she'd kick his ass. He turned to Cas. "Your turn."

"I am not family." Cas answered and Dean lowered his head, not understanding. "Dean, it has always been you two. _Always_. He might not admit it but Sam hangs on your every word and opinion." Dean slowly pulled his head back and looked to Bailey who just raised her eyebrows.

He sighed. "Fine, can we go in?" He gestured his arms towards the door and Bailey turned, walking into the base ahead of them. Dean held the door and stopped turning his head to Cas, Cas paused and waited as Dean swallowed. "Is it bad?"

Cas shook his head and then took Dean's hand.

Dean smiled and then seemed to realise. "And you are family, babe." He walked inside and pulled Cas with him.

They went inside and Dean stopped plodding down the stairs when he saw Sam pacing the floor. Dean looked up to Cas for a second and then kept walking. It sure looked bad.

Sam looked up when he heard the metal clanking and then exhaled. The sisters were nowhere to be seen and Cas understood when Sam glanced to him, he squeezed Dean's hand and walked out of the main room. He got a shook when he was pulled to the side and saw Bailey and Hayley just outside the door, eavesdropping. He looked to them and then relented; he couldn't have walked away either. He leaned against the wall with the sisters too and waited, he saw Bailey holding Hayley's right hand in reassurance so Cas took Bailey's own right and she squeezed back, they shared a smile and then went back to listening.

"Dean listen, I need to tell you something. I need to tell you and I know you won't like it and that's okay but I need to tell you." Sam gestured to Dean with his hands and eyebrows.

Dean nodded. "Hit me."

Sam inhaled deeply and nodded. He paused and Dean shook his head expectantly. "Give me a second." Hayley squeezed Bailey's hand anxiously.

Sam turned away from Dean and Dean panicked - it definitely seemed bad, it had to be bad. Had Cas lied to make him feel better?

Sam exhaled heavily and Dean closed his eyes. "Sam, spit it out I'm about ready to hurl over here."

"Okay." Sam blew out again and shook his arms before swallowing and turning to Dean. "Okay, I can do this." He paused. "In a minute." He looked down.

Dean walked to him and held his shoulders. "Sam, look at me." Sam looked up. "Whatever it is, you can tell me." He searched his eyes. "Just tell me before I bet it out of you."

Sam laughed and Dean smiled a little.

Cas and Hayley closed their eyes and Bailey desperately needed a cigarette.

Sam nodded. "Hayley..." His throat stuttered. "Hayley's pregnant."

Dean eyes widened and he took a step backwards, pointing to the doorway. "She's..."

"Pregnant, yeah." Sam nodded.

Dean blinked a few times, pointing to Sam. "And you're..."

"Doing this, yeah." Sam nodded again.

Dean stuttered, pointing to himself. "And I'm..."

"Mad, I know but listen Dean-" Sam put his hand out.

"Mad?" Dean cut him off, his brow tensing into anger and hurt. "Mad?!" His voice raised and Cas screwed his eyes tight, hoping. "I was going to say, I'm going to be an uncle?"

Cas and Hayley opened their eyes, Cas and Bailey smiling.

It was Sam's turn to blink a few times. "Yeah?"

Dean grabbed Sam and Sam put his hands out while Dean attacked him. While Dean hugged him. Dean was hugging him. Not beating his ass.

"Uh, Dean?" Sam asked, unsure of what was going on. Dean pulled back to look. "You're hugging me? You're okay with this?"

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Okay? Kid, let me tell you something." Dean took a step back. "You listening?" Sam nodded. "I'm proud of you."

"Really?"

"Of course." Dean smirked. "Didn't know you had it in you." He punched Sam softly as they laughed. "You know they're standing there right?"

"Oh yeah." Dean and Sam looked over Sam's shoulder as Hayley stepped out, pulling Bailey with her a few steps.

Dean took a step forward and opened his arms a little as Hayley walked to him. He hugged her and mumbled congratulations into her ear. Bailey followed her and hugged into Sam's side. Cas stood in the doorway watching. Dean had definitely changed but Bailey was right, he was growing around the change in his life and that was a good thing. A thing he was a part of.

Cas took a step or two forward and Sam looked to him, he held out his hand. "Congratulations Sam."

"Thanks Cas." He took it to shake and then exhaled a little laugh. "_Uncle_ Cas." Cas smiled.

Partner, brother and uncle.

Family.


	6. Chapter 6

Bailey wandered into the main room and put more beer down on the table.

"So what do we know?" Dean looked to Hayley. "Healthy?"

"Dean, I'm only eight weeks." She laughed drinking her soda.

"Serious?" He looked to Sam who nodded. "Aw, come on! You couldn't have waited?"

Sam screwed up his brow. "What?"

"You could have waited to tell me!" He smiled. "We got to wait, what is that, seven months?"

"It's _forty_ weeks, Dean." Castiel corrected. "Assuming you do not deliver early," he tilted his head, "or late."

Dean threw his head back in his chair. "Great." He looked to Cas. "God's way or tormenting us." Castiel smiled at Dean, he was excited and Cas was happy just seeing it. "What are you looking at me like that for?" Everyone looked at Cas.

"I never expected you to be content with this knowledge."

"Really?" Dean looked around in surprise when the other three mumbled in agreement. "Oh, that's great guys."

Bailey had her feet up on the table but she leaned to Cas. "Cigarette?"

He nodded and looked a little surprised when they stood and she headed for the entrance. He and Hayley shared a look before he gestured to Dean and she nodded.

He followed Bailey outside and shut the door. They leaned against Cas' car rolling their cigarettes and looking up at the sky. "So, Dean's excited, huh?"

"Yes, it would seem so." Cas replied looking down at his work as he prepared to seal it.

"I had money on him disappearing for a few days." She smiled when Cas laughed and nodded. "Would you have gone with him?"

"Yes." He soothed the paper with the pads of his fingers and glanced to her. "And I would have brought him back eventually."

She smiled and held out the lighter. "I believe that."

Inside Dean and the happy couple were talking about arrangements and beds and everything else.

"Yeah, and clowns." Dean said and the other two laughed, that marking the end of that conversation.

Dean lowered his feet from the table and played with the bottle top on the table. Sam knew what was coming.

"So..." Dean started and looked up, Sam gave him nothing, just waited. He glanced to Hayley who had been with Sam long enough and knew Dean enough to do exactly the same. "How is this going to work?"

Sam sighed. "Dean-"

Dean put his hand up. "I wasn't saying this isn't going to work, I'm asking what your plan is and how can I be a part of it." Sam and Hayley looked at each other. "Look Sam, I know you all expect me to be the big party pooper, but the truth is I have always done what I thought was best for you. I did what I could." He clasped the bottle top in his hand. "I would never have imagined that you-" he stopped himself, "that _we_ could ever have found a life like this, you two and me and Cas and then Bailey is just..." He smiled. "An added bonus." Hayley smiled. "Don't tell her I said that." He pointed at her.

"Oh, she already knows." Hayley teased.

Dean smiled and looked back to Sam. "I would never have imagined it. But here it is and it's great, right?"

Sam smiled and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah it is." He took Hayley's hand on the table and Dean looked.

"And now, what's best for you is..." He laughed. "Well, it's none of my beeswax. If it was I would say that this is what's best for you, this relationship, this life and this future. But it's none of mine. It's all you kid. I just hope I can still be a part of it."

Sam screwed up his face, still smiling. "Of course." He looked to Hayley. "Right?"

"Always." She nodded. "How can you even ask that? You and Cas are like the brothers I never had. Never wanted." Dean laughed. "Can I ask?" Dean raised his eyebrows. "You and Cas... That's it, right?"

"What do you mean?" Dean looked to Sam who looked a little worried, as if he knew exactly what she was talking about, as if they had spoken about it between themselves.

"We just wondered about, you know the whole Heaven thing..." Sam seemed to trail off apologetically, if that was possible.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "He promised me he's staying." He opened his mouth as if to say something else and then decided not to.

Sam turned his head a little. "You... You don't believe him?"

"Of course I do!" Dean shot back instantly. Too quickly. Sam just cocked an eyebrow. "Look Sammy, you don't need to worry about that, whatever happens I will deal with it."

"Dean-"

"I said I will deal with it!" Dean shouted and then calmed down when Sam leaned back in his chair and Hayley shifted. "I'm sorry but Cas and this angel business makes me so..." He tried to think of the word but Hayley found it.

"Scared." The brothers looked to him. "You're scared that he'll leave. Even though he promised you he won't there's a part of you that still feels like you're not enough." A silence fell over the three of them.

Outside Cas and Hayley hadn't spoken in a while.

"Bailey," she turned to look at him, "do you ever think about the fact that you're a prophet."

"Why would I?" She seemed a little disjointed at the mention.

"If Heaven ever opens again you might be called apon, with Kevin gone a new prophet will need to step into place."

"What if I chose not to?" She stiffened her jaw and Cas almost smiled as he saw Dean do the same thing in his memories.

"I am afraid to say that it is not a choice, if you are marked and called upon then you are a prophet, whether you like it or not." She waited. "If you do not step up to your role then," he inhaled the last part of his cigarette, "you are not of use."

"They kill me?" She nodded sarcastically. "Friggin' angels." Cas laughed at that and she turned, smiling at his laughter. "Well, they can try. I could use some target practice." She flicked her own cigarette and they shifted their weights from the car. "What about you, bro? If Heaven kick starts again then won't someone come looking for the great angel Castiel?"

"I am human." He swallowed. "And I am staying human."

She laughed. "You said the thing."

"What?" He squinted to her.

"Nothing." She waved her hand as they walked to the door. He still tried to work it out but was distracted when she turned in front of him. "Seriously though, you won't go?"

Cas shook his head. "Never. I promised Dean I wouldn't go."

She shook her head and looked down. "Nananana," she looked up, "screw promising Dean 'cause I tell you, Cas. He doesn't care about promising him, all he's interested in is that you _want_ to stay. If you ever want to go, do him a favour and don't stick around because you promised. He'd rather that." She patted him on the shoulder and walked into the bunker. Cas stood there thinking of all she had said and that moment in the store when Dean told him to go, for the first time and not the last.

And then a song went through Castiel's head.

_They'll be no strings to bind your hands, not if my love can't bind your heart..._

"Okay, you want the truth?" Dean leaned forward in his chair. "Every morning I wake up and I get this tiny jolt, you know for that few seconds when you can't feel anything, your arms, legs, anything?" Sam nodded. "I get this jolt of..." Dean swallowed and tried to remember that bottling up was something in his past. Or he tried to make sure it was. "Fear. When I can't feel him lying next to me." Sam and Hayley looked confused. "He knows, he found the way to go back." Dean explained.

Sam's eyes widened and Hayley's head jutted forward a little. "He found a way to be an angel again?"

"When?" Sam asked.

Dean inhaled. "About a year ago." Sam looked up as if trying to work something out. "He found it, he said he had to find it for himself and I respected that, he found it and he told me about it. I asked him if he was going, he said no, so I asked him, I said that if he wanted to go then he had to promise me that he'd go but if he was going to go at that time then I asked him to go before I woke up because I couldn't take the wondering every day and night."

"But he didn't." Sam gestured.

"Brilliant observation there, boy wonder." Sam sighed and rolled his eyes. "I know that but every morning when I can't feel him beside me or I wake up and he's already up, or every time he goes for supplies himself, every time he gets a little low and needs time to himself or a drive or whatever. Even when he's..." He hesitated. "When he comes to me and is needy." Sam shifted a little. "Not like that." Dean looked to the side. "Okay, maybe that too, but I mean when he is touchy feely for no reason I can't help but wonder if he's trying to remind himself, trying to give himself reasons to stay. I just wonder if he's here because he loves me and is happy or because he promised." Dean jutted his jaw looked to the side stopping himself, aware he was getting emotional. "Here I am, whining, and you two have this amazing news and I'm just being..." He trailed off and dropped his face into his hands.

"Dean," Hayley reached across the table to him, letting her hand rest in front of him, he raised his head to look at her, "a year." He paused. "Twelve months, all of those weeks, all of those days, all of those hours while you were panicking and being scared he was staying with you. He's here with you and you're missing it while you're driving yourself mad. You are feeling the kisses and the hugs and the..." She glanced to Sam, "everything else, worried that it's the last. That's not being with someone, not the way he's with you. And that's not fair."

He sighed, dropped his hand to hers and nodded. Then he widened his eyes. "Seven months?! I can't wait that long for that little bastard." Hayley opened her mouth in shock. "What?" He gestured to Sam and himself. "You've met us, right, he, or she, will be Hell to raise." They laughed.

Bailey and Cas stood at the top of the stairs, she looked to him. "See?" She whispered.

.

"Come on, you." Dean pulled Cas' hand so that he stood up from the table. "Bed."

"Really?" Bailey smirked at Dean and he smiled at her.

"Yes, bed." He walked away. "I'm tired."

"Sure." Hayley chimed in and Sam put his hands over his ears singing. "Shut up." She pulled his hands away and he smiled.

"Hey," Dean stopped at the doorway while Cas stood behind him, Dean smiled when Cas embraced the back of him and lay the right side of his face lazily on his back, leaning, Dean looked to Sam and Hayley, "I'm seriously happy for you two." They smiled and Dean lifted his left arm over Cas to lead him down the hallway.

"I'm going to hit it, too." Bailey sighed and stood to walk away.

Hayley put her hand out to stop her and Bailey turned to look down at her. "You alright, chick?"

Bailey nodded. "Yeah. Night." She leaned and kissed the top of Hayley's head before she wandered away and Hayley and Sam shared a look.

"Right," Dean closed the door behind him and turned to see Cas sit down on the edge of the bed with his eyes closed, "you really should get undressed first."

"Uh-huh." Cas lay back and tried to squirm up the bed. Dean smiled and walked over before leaning to undo Cas' pant buttons. "What are you doing?"

"Well, uh," Dean smiled, "this isn't the way I imagined undressing you tonight but you can't sleep in your clothes."

Cas smirked and sat up a bit to grab Dean's hands. "Do you imagine," he pulled at Deans hands as he tried to lie back down, "undressing me a lot?"

Dean smiled back as he let Cas pull him onto the bed to straddle Cas' hips. "Oh, it pops up every now and again."

Cas opened his eyes, smirk gone, just a smile. "Is that as well as the fear that I am going to leave?"

Dean's smile fell. "You were listening?" He tried to pull away but Cas flipped him on the bed."Cas, don't do this."

"No, because you know what? I was not eavesdropping intentionally but I did overhear and we are going to talk about this, right now." Dean struggled. "Stop trying to wriggle free and talk to me."

Dean sighed and looked up. "You certainly woke up quickly."

"Yes, it is quite hurtful when someone pretends to be in a state that they are not to take advantage of you rather than just talking about it, is it not?"

Dean inhaled. "Cas, I said I was sorry about that and I said I wouldn't do that again."

"Yes, and I promised I was not going to leave but you have not taken me at my word."

Cas relaxed a little when it was obvious Dean had admitted defeat. "What do you want me to say, Cas? That I'm still terrified that I'm going to lose you, well I am and I'm sorry but that's never going to change, promise or not. You mean too much to me for me not to worry." He gestured and let Cas shift to straddle him, only to be more comfortable, Dean's hands automatically went to rest on Cas' thighs. "I need you, I can't deny that. I love you and I need you more than anything, and the minute I stop being worried about losing you is the time to question us."

"Dean, I'm not going anywhere. And not because I promised you, or because I have nowhere to go. Because, even without Heaven I could still be an angel again if I wanted but it is not a case of 'I failed at being an angel so I am going remain here', it is a case of 'I love you and I want to be here with you'. For as long as you want me." Cas leaned and let his left hand lean on the pillow next to Dean's head. "I need you to know that, I want this, us, for..." he brought his right hand to cup Dean's face and he leaned into it, "ever."

Dean just nodded and looked at Cas' lips while Cas leaned down to kiss him. He leaned over Dean, kissing him once. He then pulled back to look at him, left eye then right, for a few seconds and then they kissed again. Cas settled on his elbows at either side of Dean's head, tucking his legs back in between Dean's, Dean's arms coming up to rest on Cas' back. Quite a while later Cas stopped and looked up to Dean's hair as he leaned back to run one hand through it. Dean closed his eyes and felt it, Cas looked to his face and watched him as he just concentrated on the feeling of Cas touching him.

"Sometimes," Cas started and Dean's eyes slowly opened to look at him, "I think," he tickled a finger on his left hand along Dean's hairline, "I couldn't love you any more," he traced Dean's jawline, "it's just not possible," when he reached the middle of Dean's chin he trailed it up to his lip, "and it should be." He kissed Dean once, even kissing his own finger and then brought it to his top lip and continued up his face. "But then," he smiled when he tickled Dean's philtrum and remembered the shaving cream, "I look at you," he got to Dean's nose and trace up to the bridge and followed his right eyebrow, "all I have to do is look at you or think about you, about your smile," he tickled underneath Dean's eye and Dean didn't even flinch, completely trusting and listening until Cas reached the bridge of his nose again and followed the other eyebrow, "or your eyes, or even that little mole on your-"

Dean laughed and looked to the side, blushing slightly and Cas smiled looking at him.

"Or that laugh. You have no idea what that does to me." Dean smirked but it wasn't leeringly. "Everything about you just hurts." Dean's smile dropped a little. "In a good way, and then I realise I loved you more than I did a millisecond ago, and I feel awful that I didn't always love you that much and in the next second I love you even more and it repeats and repeats until I'm just a big ball of hurt and you and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Dean flipped Cas over on the bed looking him in the eyes. "You are such a softie." He smiled and Cas laughed gently before Dean kissed him. He kissed his mouth and then trailed down his chin to his neck. He kissed down his Adam's apple and to the base then he pulled back slowly and, taking Cas with him to sit him up, he pulled Cas' AC/DC t-shirt off and cupped his jaw before Cas tugged at his shirt, Dean leaned on his knees and shrugged it off while Cas ran his hands up under the t-shirt left ready to lift it. They just let the tops lie on the empty side of the bed next to them as Dean brought his right hand back to Cas' jaw and kissed him while they lay back down, Cas' left hand coming up to touch the back of Dean's hand, his fingers lightly dragged down to Dean's wrist and back up.

Cas moaned lightly when Dean kissed back down his neck and then around to the right side, knowing full well that there was Cas' weak spot. Cas' breathing gradually started to quicken but Dean wasn't trying to heat him up as fast as he could, he wanted to touch him, see him, to really _see_ him. Cas squirmed underneath him and rolled his hips up towards Dean who let out a little moan of his own, his pulled back a little but his lips still dragged over Cas' skin. Dean kissed him there again, letting his tongue pad against the skin, pushing slightly promising that this was definitely going somewhere intense. Cas' hips slowed, ready to be patient. Dean kissed down Cas' torso, going from side to side, in no hurry, his hands ghosting over Cas' shoulders and arms.

"Is this more what you had in mind?" Cas looked down and brought his right hand up to run through Dean's hair.

Dean looked up, smiling. "Not really." He kissed over Cas' right shoulder, down his upper arm before crossing back to his ribs and over to his abdomen, he shuffled down the bed more and kissed further and further down.

He kissed the metal button on Cas' denim pants and rubbed the outer side of his upper legs and Cas moved to lean on his elbows. "I always knew you were a sucker for metal."

Cas smirked when Dean stalled and opened his mouth to protest. He then looked to the side and laughed. "Now I'm too proud to be mad." He rubbed Cas through the denim and Cas' mouth instantly opened while his breathing, if it had slowed, kicked right back. "Time for pay back." Cas closed his eyes before opening them again to watch as Dean played with the button, he rubbed Cas once and then popped it. Dean looked to Cas as he teased the zip down and Cas lifted his hip to allow Dean to pull the pants down, Dean straightened up and to tug each leg off. He looked away to hold them over the floor and drop them.

"Cas," Dean began while he looked back to Cas, "most of the time, when we do this-"

He pressed the palm of his hands into Cas' bare thighs and rubbed up and down when Cas cut him off. "I think I can safely say we have never done this before." He looked to the side. "Not like this."

Dean paused and twitched his head to the side. "If you don't wan-"

Cas shook his head. "I didn't say I didn't like it." Dean began rubbing his hands again. "Carry on."

"Whenever we do this," he leaned forward and kissed Cas' chest, Cas' right hand lifted to rest on his head and run through his hair, "I just can't get enough of you," he kissed again, "fast enough," he moved slowly down to Cas' left rib, "it's like you fill up my," again, "vision, and I just lose myself," abdomen, "in you." Cas felt a little scratch on his right hip as Dean hooked his index finger in the top band of Cas' boxers. "I don't think, in the," he looked up, thinking then kissed beside his naval, "over three years we've been together," he shifted to use his right hand too, "that I have ever touched you like this."

Cas was watching him the whole time, taking in ever single kiss, every click that they made whenever Dean's lips left his skin, every tickle of his rough hands, every ghost of breath from Dean's nose or mouth as he kissed and spoke. He shook his head slowly. "You haven't." Dean looked sad when Cas confirmed it. "But that doesn't mean you haven't touched me. That doesn't mean that it wasn't amazing, that every time we have been intimate hasn't been filled with electricity and love. The fact that we have never done this, means nothing." He shrugged his shoulders with a happy smile. "Nothing," Dean looked up properly, "except that we're doing it now."

Dean smiled a little. "I always want to touch you like this." He dragged Cas' underwear down his legs and Cas bent his knees to help. "Every time I kiss you I want it to be like this." He kissed the inside of Cas' thigh as he pulled his leg out and Cas closed his eyes. "It should always be like this."

"Don't say that." Cas drawled and Dean rubbed his bare leg as he pulled them down the other. "Saying that makes every other time seem like it wasn't good." He opened his eyes. "This is amazing, but when you've got me up against that wall," he gestured his head to the wall beside the door, "or the heat in the shower," he swallowed heavily and Dean licked his lips, "every bite, every scratch, every bruise," a shiver ran over Dean and he inhaled, "is just as amazing because it's you."

"Really?" Dean rubbed his right hand around Cas' leg and found himself winding up a little.

"Really." Cas nodded and Dean lifted Cas' leg before biting his inner thigh and Cas moaned a little. Dean kissed on the bite and then licked upwards, he lifted to avoid the mess of hair but then continued licking up Cas' length. He stopped and blew cold air at the tip of Cas' cock and then laughed when it twitched."Get your pants off before I rip them off."

Dean smirked. "I think I'll go for the second option." Dean didn't get to blink before he was on his back on top of the t-shirts.


	7. Chapter 7

Cas lay awake in the dark. He and Dean had had an amazing few hours of start and stop sex. One minute they were all over each other; Cas could feel his hips beginning to bruise and he was sure those scratches on Dean's back would last a couple of days. But the next minute everything slowed, nothing mattered more than stopping for that long kiss or to rock up to meet Dean's hips as he pushed back in. And then everything sped up again, the need to grab onto each other so intense as if the other was in danger of flying off. They had fell back into bed after their quick clean up, the both of them completely exhausted and numb. Satisfied.

Dean had fell asleep quite quickly, but Cas had been completely unable to drift off. He lay on Dean's right, he turned towards him and rested his head on his left hand raised on it's elbow. He looked down at Dean in the darkness, his eyes long having adjusted, and sighed. He was beautiful; there was no denying he was attractive and drove Cas mad but in the darkness of their bedroom, in his post-sex haze of snoring and sweat he was beautiful. Cas was sure there was not an inch of his body that Dean had not explored that night and the same went for him. But somehow he wanted to see it all again and he wanted Dean to want the same from him.

Dean turned towards Cas and sighed before smiling a little. Cas used his right hand to trace Dean's left, he tickled in little circles over his hand up to his wrist and then, up his arm in big circles and then retracing his steps and changing to little ones before moving further up. Dean twitched his fingers a little as if they were itchy and Cas smiled to himself. He got to Dean's shoulder and traced where he remembered his hand print had once lay.

Cas whispered into the darkness, looking at Dean. "I love you, Dean Winchester. Maybe I have done since the beginning, who knows?" Dean shifted and he moved his left hand to Cas' side as if answering. "We're going to have to think of a new name for our team. I think we're passed 'Team Free Will'." He laughed quietly to himself. "It all seems so long ago. Another lifetime." He looked as he moved his hand to Dean's hair and played with a few strands. "Sam's having a baby, he'll be a father. That is quite a task." He ran his fingers through Dean's hair lightly so's not to wake him. "You'll be an uncle." He sighed. "I don't know how the hunting and everything is going to fit in now but as you say, we'll deal." He leaned forward to kiss Dean's shoulder. "We'll deal, with whatever happens now."

He shuffled to lie himself down next to Dean and lay on his back. He closed his eyes and then after a few seconds he turned onto his side and lifted Dean's hand so that he could rest it back on his side and Cas became the little spoon. Dean's eyes opened and he looked at the back of Cas in the darkness. He pursed his lips together and then closed his eyes again. They'd deal but with what, what was Cas not saying? What could he not bring himself to say outloud, even as Dean slept.

.

Dean was frying in the kitchen as usual and Sam was standing leaning against the counter behind him.

"James Stewart's portrayal was brilliant." Dean cut his hand in the air talking slightly over his shoulder.

"I don't care, I am not calling my kid Lin." Dean opened his mouth. "Even if it's a girl."

"And what are you going to go for?" Dean pushed the sleeves of his bathrobe up his arms again. "Ghandi?" Sam rolled his eyes. "Oh I know; Jared!"

Sam screwed up his face. "No!" Dean turned to look. "I don't even think that's a real name, Dean."

"What then?"

"I don't know Dean, Hayley is only just four months pregnant, excuse me if I haven't got the school uniform picked out yet." His face changed to shock. "Oh my god." Dean turned to look. "I'm going to have to find a school, what if they don't like it? What if they get bullied and just try to fight back and end up causing a student to kill themselves?" Dean screwed up his brow. "Oh god, what if the school is haunted?" He ran his fingers through his hair.

Dean turned with the pan and started dividing the meat up between the five plates. "Calm down for a second there, Rosemary." Sam exhaled annoyed. "Eat this and shut up. We will deal with it." He shoved the pan to the side and turned the cooker off. "All of it."

Dean opened the fridge and brought out a tub of gherkins. Sam was fussing with the plates, putting burger buns on them, so he never noticed. He picked up his, Hayley's and Bailey's. When he left Dean put a couple of the gherkins on his burger, put the jar back and carried his and Cas' food into the main room. It was just the three men when they got there and they all settled in to eat.

The girls appeared in the doorway and they all settled down together but after a few seconds Hayley paused and looked to the side. Dean was just about to bite into his burger but was stopped when Hayley said his name.

"Dean, is that gherkins?"

He smiled. "Yeah, want some? There's pl..." He trailed off with his thumb pointing to the kitchen when she ran off down the hall. "What did I do?"

Sam sighed. "Gherkins make her sick, Dean." He stood up to follow Hayley down the hall. "How many times do I have to say it? Gherkins and cheese sauce." He disappeared out of the doorway. "And liquorice!"

Dean looked around. "But she's not eating them?" He looked to Cas. "I can't eat them either?"

Cas smiled sympathetically. "It's the smell."

Dean sighed. He took a bite as if he was defying God. Again. "This sucks, it's not even my kid and I'm suffering." He stood up and walked to the kitchen to put the gherkins in the bin.

Cas watched him go and then looked to Bailey. "Cigarette?" She shook her head and picked at her burger. He wandered outside by himself leaving his burger untouched.

Dean came back and looked around, he pointed towards the base entrance. "Smoke?" She nodded and Dean sat down beside her. He looked at his burger with dislike. "Looks so bare now." She smiled and he looked. It was a different smile now, now she was ready. "Spill." She looked to the side. "Alright don't." There was a few seconds before Dean did what he always did. He started singing softly. "_In my life_," He paused and she looked. "_there's been heartache and pain._" He gestured to his burger. "_I don't know if I can face it again..._" he looked to her and waited. When she didn't do anything he inhaled and closed his mouth as if hurt.

She rolled her eyes and she spoke. "Can't stop now, I've travelled so far." She stopped and let her hand fall away from her food. He just looked at her and she sighed. "To change this lonely life."

"Come on now, you have to put feeling into it." He leaned towards her. "_I wanna know what love is!" _She laughed and joined in. "_I want you to show me," _Dean brought his right closed fist up shook it in the air between them, "_I wanna feel what love is," _Bailey did the same with her hand leaning towards Dean, "_I know you can show me!"_ They both laughed and sat back. She looked to her burger and pursed her lips as if she didn't want to be smiling and he looked at her. "See? Is there any other way to honor a Foreigner song?"

She shook her head. "No."

He dropped his hand and lightly punched her knee. "So, spill." She inhaled and paused. "I can sing more?"

"No." She smiled. "No more murder, Dean." He opened his mouth in shock and she smiled. "This baby," she sighed, "I am so happy for them, I am." She turned towards him a little. "You have to know that?" He nodded. "But I mean, where does that leave me?"

"Aunt." Dean said as if there was no other answer. He shook his head and gestured his hand in a 'where else?' manner.

"Dean, I honestly didn't expect you to be happy about the baby, I didn't, and I could understand that. We're hunters. We were shoved into this game and I know you're like me, I know you love it as much as you hate it." Dean looked at the table. "It's all I know how to do, it's all I care to do. I love my sister, I do. But changing diapers and a screaming kid. Come on?"

"Done it before." She raised her eyebrow. "I mean, fair enough it wasn't for longer than a few days." He sighed. "Long story short we were protecting a shifter baby from it's dad. Me and Sam looking after a baby, yeah it was surreal. But, I mean it's not all about babies, Bee, I was there for Ben for a year." He thought back. "I was that kid's dad. I was. I was the one there when the kids were picking on him, I was the one telling him to turn his music down. Although, that was mostly Lisa's doing." He smiled. "He had good taste."

"Do you ever miss it?" She looked up to him. "Being a dad?"

He smiled. "In a way. My second go wasn't any better." Bailey just stared. "One night stand with a monster, I had an sixteen year old."

"What?!" Bailey turned in her chair. "How is that even possible?"

He smiled. "It's a long story. She tried to kill me." He tilted his head. "I've not had much luck with kids."

"Do me a favour," he tipped his head up in reply, "if you're walking around this base and you come across a tall guy with long hair, introduce yourself." Dean laughed and looked at his hand on his lap. "You already raised a boy."

"And now he's a man." Dean leaned forward to rest on the table and tucked his chin over his right upper arm to look at between Bailey and the table. "About to raise a kid of his own." Bailey nodded. "Bailey, you can still be a hunter, Hell we all can, it won't be perfect and it'll be terrifying." He rubbed his face. "I was adamant Ben was never going to hold a gun, never mind fire one, but that didn't work out as planned. We have a certain type of life here, whatever Sam and Hayley decide to do you are always welcome here. Hunter or not."

"If he stops, what will you do?"

Dean sighed. "I don't know. I got Cas to think about too."

She nudged him. "He'll do whatever makes you happy, he's not here to hunt, Dean. He's here to be with you. If you packed it all in right this second he'd be right with you if he thought it was what you wanted." Dean nodded. "But he knows you love this life."

"Yeah." Dean turned to look at Bailey. "But I love Sam more. Where he and that kid goes, I go. If he wants me to."

The door to the base closed and the two shared a look. "Here he is." Dean said as Cas walked in.

"What's that?" Cas said as he approached the table and when he stopped at the chair on Bailey's side he saw an ever so slight relax in Dean's smile so he carried on and stood behind Dean's chair, his hands on Dean's shoulders.

"I was just saying to Bailey," they shared a look that said he wasn't going to spill the beans, "I don't know what Sam's plans are when the rat gets here."

"Yeah, me neither." Cas said. He lowered himself so that his arms wrapped around Dean's neck loosely and Dean's right hand came up to hold onto his arm. "Whatever it is though, we'll figure it out." He kissed Dean's temple and looked to Bailey. "Right?"

She nodded, a little smile. "Yeah, bro." She looked down and Dean narrowed his eyes at her. She wasn't convinced.

Sam wandered back in, his jumper sleeves rolled up and brushing his hair back. The three turned to look as he sighed and pointed to Dean's plate. "Gherkins?"

.

Hayley hadn't been sleeping very well; one minute she was too hot and the next she was freezing, she was comfy then she wasn't, she was sleepy then she was wide awake.

She rolled onto her back again and sighed. She put her hand on her stomach, which had begun to show, and whispered. "You're already keeping me up." She rubbed her stomach gently. "When you get here, your daddy is doing all of the feeds so I can catch up on some Z's." She turned her head to to look at Sam on his side looking at her; he was sleeping soundly but his face was just a little contorted and he was moving his lips but barely making a sound. "He is going to sleep right through me making you." She chuckled a little and looked back up at the ceiling.

She settled again and closed her eyes, she then poked her right foot out of the covers at the bottom and smiled.

"I won't let you." Sam whispered.

Hayley turned to look at him in the darkness, his brow was crinkled and he was mumbling. "Baby?" She whispered to see if he was awake.

"I won't let you take her, Azazel!" He spoke but his voice was getting louder.

Hayley put her hand on his shoulder. "Sam?"

"I wont!" He shouted, his eyes still closed but his fists tightening, squeezing his pillow.

"Sam!" She shook him once more and he woke, within a second he was on top of her with his arm across her chest. "Sam, it's me!" She put on hand on his arm and the other over her stomach.

She could see the exact moment when he woke up, it happened in a blink. "Hayley?"

"It's me." She rubbed his arm and he looked around the room. "It was just a dream."

He sighed and relaxed, moving his arm from her chest. "I'm sorry." He looked back to her. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head. "No."

He leaned forward and kissed her. "You sure?" She nodded and he leaned down, she moved her hand and he kissed her stomach over her vest top. "I'm so sorry." She let her hand rest on his head and then stroked on top of his hair. He lifted up her top enough to kiss her bare stomach and she smiled. "I'm sorry."

"Baby, it was just a dream." He nodded and kept kissing all over her stomach. "Who's Azazel?" Sam paused mid-kiss. "I'm sorry, it's just," he looked up at her, "you were mumbling in your sleep and then you started shouting saying you won't let him take her. Who is he?"

Sam sighed and sat back on the bed, Hayley sat up where she was. "He's the yellow-eyed demon."

She widened her eyes, clearly knowing the story by now. "His name was Azazel?" Sam nodded. "I thought he was dead?"

Sam brushed his hair back. "He is." He paused. "Hayley, what if our baby is..." He looked to her as she sat just waiting. "Strange." She smiled. "Like me?"

She reached forward with her right hand and took Sam's left. "Baby, you are not strange, now I know you had a lot going on and that's an understatement. I will never understand what you went through, never, but I can tell you one thing. There is nothing wrong with you. You are Sam, exactly how you were meant to be because if all of that stuff, however horrible it all was, hadn't happened then you wouldn't be the man that you are now." She wriggled his hand and he smiled a little. "You wouldn't be the man I love." He squeezed her hand. "And I would not be sitting here ready to bring a kid into the world, knowing how bad and dangerous it can be and you know we have so much more to worry about than other parents." He widened his eyes and nodded. "I wouldn't be about to start this with you if you weren't who you are."

"Really?"

"Sam, of course!" She pulled his hand towards her stomach and he shuffled forward to let her. She put it there and brought her other hand over his. "There is no one in the world I would want to do this with except you." She looked up to the side. "Well, maybe Dean Forester from Gilmore Girls." She laughed when he shook his head, leaned forward and kissed her. "You said 'she'."

"What?" He pulled back a little but still rubbed her stomach.

"In your sleep, you said you wouldn't let him take _her_. Do you think it's going to be a girl?"

Sam's eyes widened. "I hadn't thought about it. What do you think?"

She rubbed her stomach and looked to the side before smacking her lips together. "I think boy."

"Did you just try to _taste_ it?" Sam laughed.

"How else do you guess?" She punched Sam's stomach and he flinched to protect himself. "Shut up, you. Get back over here and cuddle me."

He lay down beside her and they settled back to go to sleep. "I love you too." She smiled and closed her eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

_"What do you want?" Dean sat there looking at Cas. Upset and winded, emotionally._

_"Dean, listen-"_

_"What do you want me to say? She'll be dead by midnight." _

_"I'm sorry." And he meant it. He had never expected any of this to happen and he knew that he should have._

_"I don't care. It's too little, too late."_

_"Okay." He had expected that, Dean had told him he was like a brother to him and look what he had done. "Well, regardless, I didn't come for you." Not just for you._

_"Meaning?"_

_Castiel walked over to the bed where Lisa lay unconscious and barely alive, whatever part of her that was alive was being held there by machines. He placed his hand to her forehead and closed his eyes. He healed her, trying to do something so that no one was hurt. He didn't want to hurt anyone and he certainly didn't want anyone to die. Least of all someone who could have given Dean a chance at happiness. "She's fine now. She'll wake soon. Dean, I said I'm sorry and I meant it."_

_"Thank you. I wish this changed anything."_

_"I know. So do I. All else aside I just wanted to fix what I could." Castiel turned to walk away._

_"There's one more thing you could do for me."_

Castiel was brought back to himself by a scream and his head shoot up. Hayley. He bounded out of his chair in the main hall and ran along the corridor. It was just the two of them in the base and she had gone to lie down for a nap. He got to her door and slid to a stop holding onto the door frame to find her on her hands and knees on the floor. "Hayley?" He rushed to the floor at her side as she turned her head to the right to look at him. Her face was getting redder and she was crying, her right hand was holding onto her stomach. "What is it, what's wrong?"

"I don't know." She managed to breathe. "It." She screamed out and Castiel's eyes widened. "It hurts!"

"Alright." He put his hands up. "We need to get you to the hospital." She sat back a little and grasped onto his arms.

"What about Sam?" He slowly helped her stand.

"We will worry about that when we get going, okay?" She nodded. "Trust me."

"I do." She muttered and he had to push away his shock. No time.

She was just in shorts and a vest top as they walked down the corridor, Cas walked backwards, leading her and never letting go. She stopped every now and again to let out a little shout and hold onto Cas' tighter. Eventually they got to the main room, Cas held on with his left arm and grabbed the keys from the table to his Camero and his trench coat. They got to the little stair well. She reached for the bannister.

"Cas." She panicked as he let go.

"I'm right here, I'm going to be behind you the whole way okay, you hold on and you go at your speed." She nodded. "But quite quickly." She let out a breathy laugh and he smiled as she started to slowly climb. He stayed one step behind her to make sure she knew he was there to support her. "Doing great."

She nodded. "Thanks."

"No need." They got to the top and out of the base door. Cas ran to the passenger door and opened it before turning and helping Hayley lower herself into the seat, he remembered his near misses with the brothers so he pulled her safebelt across her and leaned in to click it. When he had stood up he took the trench coat he had over his shoulder and quickly covered her up. He then shut the door, ran around to the driver side and clambered in. He flipped his cell open, set it to loudspeaker and dialled 1 before throwing it on the dash and turning the key in the engine, the phone began to ring slowly. "Do you happen to know where the hospital is?" He admitted and she nodded before raising her hand and gesturing to go forward then right. He pulled off down the door as the phone rang.

"_Cas, are you alright?" _Dean mumbled into the microphone.

"I'm fine, it's Hayley. We're going to..." He looked to her.

"Smith County." She managed. "Left." She said to Cas before letting out a little yell.

_"Sam!" _Dean shouted away from the phone then came back._ "What is it, what's wrong?"_

"I don't know." Hayley breathed. "Where's Sam, I need to talk to Sam."

_"Here." _Cas heard Dean say and then Sam came on the phone._ "What's up?" _He said calmly.

_"Sam, I'm scared." _She reached for the phone and screwed up her eyes. Cas leaned forward and handed her it but she kept it on speaker.

_"What's wrong?" _His voice wasn't calm now._ "Are you alright? Is the baby?"_

"I don't know!" She shouted and held her stomach. "Cas, take a right!" She continued shouting and he did as he was told. "Sam!"

There was rustling on the end and Dean could be heard shouting on Bailey before car doors slammed and Sam came back to the phone._ "Hayley listen to me," _she nodded,_ "we're on our way, okay?" _Cas could even hear the Impala start up._ "Listen, get to the nearest hospital." _Dean mumbled._ "Smith County?" _Sam asked and Dean mumbled again._ "Alright," _he spoke back into the speaker,_ "get to county and we'll be there as fast as possible. Cas if you hang up this phone I will shoot you." _Cas smiled and kept on driving. He saw the signs to the hospital and followed them.

_._

Cas sat in the waiting room when Sam, Dean and Bailey rushed in.

"What is it, where is she, is the baby alright?" Sam threw out all at once. Bailey nodding beside him.

"She's being seen, we don't have an answer yet."

"Mr Kinkade?" The doctor looked at Cas who pointed to Sam. "Mr Kinkade can you come with me, please?"

"I'm her sister." Bailey stated and Sam nodded, swallowing.

"Alright, could you both come with me?" They nodded. Sam turned to Dean nervous and clearly feeling out on the ledge as he followed them.

Dean put his hand on Cas' shoulder. "You alright?"

Cas nodded. "Yeah."

"Yeah?" Dean lowered his head a little.

"Yes." Cas paused. "But could I have a hug anyway?"

Dean smiled and pulled him in, kissing him on the forehead. "You did good, babe." Dean let his arms wrap around Cas' middle while Cas brought his arms up around Dean's neck. Shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip Cas sighed feeling a little better. After a few minutes Dean pulled back. "You sure you're alright?"

Cas looked at Dean. "I am now." Dean let his right hand come up to hold his head and Cas lay it back against Dean. No matter what, neither of them would really be okay until Sam came out.

And it was about twenty minutes before that happened, the three of them wandered out turning to say thanks to the doctor.

Dean and Cas stood up from the seats they had taken and Dean gestured his hands for a silent second. "Well?"

Sam sighed. "Braxton Hicks."

Dean's face didn't change but Cas' relaxed. "Aw, thank God."

Dean looked to them all. "Is that good? What is that?"

"Frickin' sore." Hayley muttered and walked away.

"It's no big deal-" Sam started to explain to Dean.

Hayley burled around, fire in her eyes. "No big deal?"

He put his hands out as Dean was visibly scared. "I meant that the baby is fine."

She grunted and turned back around. Bailey smirked at Sam who widened his eyes, he then turned back to Dean and Cas. "The baby is fine." He reiterated.

They got outside and the three men were talking while Bailey and Hayey walked to the car. Bailey started to roll a cigarette and Cas looked at her like a puppy so she smiled before gesturing her head. He walked over and they started to dole out the various things.

Hayley opened the door to the Camero passenger seat and Sam stepped forward. "Babe, we're taking the Impala so that-"

She turned. "You can take the Impala all you want, I'm going in this."

"I just meant because Cas an-"

She cut him off again by walking towards him. "Do you know what?" She pointed at him. "Cas was there tonight," she punched his shoulder, "where were you?" He flinched and held out his hands but before he had a chance to speak she punched his arm again. "Hunting!" She turned to Bailey. "The both of you!"

"Hayley, I was-" Bailey started.

"I don't want to hear it!" She shouted and walked over to the car, she stubbornly clambered in and slammed the door.

"She doesn't mean that." Dean offered as Cas and Bailey rolled their cigarettes idly between their fingers.

"Yes, she does!" Hayley shouted in the car with the car window closed.

Dean turned Sam so they both had their backs to her. "She's scared."

Cas turned to Bailey. "She's just scared."

Dean gestured with his hands. "You're both at this big cross roads and she maybe feels like she's going through it by herself."

Cas lit his cigarette. "It's a big change for all of us but she's the one awake at night and throwing up. None of us can understand that."

Sam looked to Dean properly. "She has this person growing in her, relying on her and changing everything. She needs you to take charge, to let her know you'll be there. Let her know she's not alone." Dean nodded in question to Sam who seemed to mull it over.

Cas inhaled. "You know how it is, you take it out on the ones closest to you because you know that they'll understand and keep coming back. They won't run away when you show your true self. She needs to know you won't leave her. That you'll still be sisters no matter what happens."

Dean and Sam shared a smile.

Cas and Bailey smiled at each other.

Sam turned and Bailey handed Cas her unlit cigarette.

Sam walked over to the car door and opened it. "I was going to say-" She made to butt in. "Shut that beautiful mouth of yours for one second." She did so but with attitude. "I was going to say, _we're_," he pointed to him and Dean, "taking the Impala because _they," _he gestured to Cas and Bailey, "will be smoking. So if you would stop being in a mood with me for one second, which you're only doing because you got a scare, could you get in the Impala please because I don't want you surrounded by smoke." He put his hand out. "And you can shout at me all the way back to the base." He smiled.

Dean smiled at the back of him and Cas glanced over at Dean. He was a good big brother when it came down to it. When he didn't take over and just nudge he was brilliant.

"Fine." Hayley took Sam's hand and he helped her out. "But I call shotgun."

"And I'm coming with you." Bailey took a step towards her. "I can smoke later." She held out her hand and Hayley paused, after a second she took it and walked to the Impala with her sister.

"Sam." Sam turned to Dean who threw the keys. "You scratch my baby..." He warned and Sam laughed before heading to the car.

"Ice cream." Hayley pointed at Sam's chest before getting into the car. He looked up to Dean who nodded.

Cas dropped his cigarette. "Looks like it's just me and you." He tucked the cigarette Bailey had given him behind his ear and smiled.

"Yeah." Dean held out his hand. "Tell you what," Cas reached to take it and waited, "let's not go home."

"Where'd you have in mind?" Cas watched Dean pull his hand up to his mouth and kiss the back of it.

"Oh I can think of a couple of places."


	9. Chapter 9

**For those of you who have read this chapter - read again. I didn't mean to upload it, I don't know why I did because it wasn't finished. Enjoy.**

* * *

"Dean, where are we going?" Cas looked down as Dean's hand rested on his knee.

"For dinner." He smiled.

"Like a date?" Cas couldn't help but smile.

Dean looked to him then back to the road. "Like a date."

.

"I don't know. Rocky Road or Butter Pecan?" Sam held them up.

"Both." Hayley said, still in a mood.

He smiled and looked down a little before putting them in the basket.

Bailey came back along the aisle with packets of biscuits. "Biscuits?" Sam asked and Hayley turned.

"Yeah," Bailey said as she put them in Sam's baskets, "like before." She smiled at Hayley who's stern face dropped.

Sam looked to Hayley. "Before?"

She looked down at them in the basket and picked at the wrapper. "When we first got our flat, it was just like one room and a bathroom, we had a lot of trouble with money and stuff. We barely had anything."

"We had enough." Bailey shrugged and looked to Sam. "We found all this stuff at a flea market right, we had a whole bunch of blankets, a couch that we slept on, a lamp, a few books and this fridge freezer that never worked."

"It did so!" Hayley looked to her. "Well, the freezer bit worked." She smiled as she looked back to Sam. "That was all."

"Yeah, so we would buy ice cream and biscuits and sit at night curled up on this couch, by the light of one lamp and tell stories or read to each other." Sam smiled.

"On the Road." Hayley looked at Sam who looked confused. "It's about a guy who travels across America with his friend and it's pretty much about the American Dream." She hooked her arm around Bailey's shoulders and suddenly got emotional. "It's what kept us going." She laughed a little when Bailey put her sleeve over her hand and used it to wipe Hayley's tears. "I don't know why I'm crying." She smiled.

.

The boys pulled into a Frankie's and Benny's looking place but with a home-grown name and less franchise. Dean opened the door and held it as Cas walked in. They found a booth in the corner and pulled out the menus.

"What you thinking?" Dean asked as he scanned the menu.

"I'm thinking..." Dean looked up and Cas quickly scanned for something, when he found it he tapped the menu with his finger and smiled before looking up. "Cheeseburger."

"Mmm." Dean looked to menu. "I think I will join you there." They put their menus down and Dean felt a leg curl around his a little. "You know, you don't have to do that."

"What?" Cas' face dropped as if he had done something wrong. "Do you not want me to?"

Dean smiled and reached across the table for Cas' hand. "Yeah, yeah course I do." He curled his leg back. "I just mean that I hope you're doing that because you want to and not because I said I wish you were more like that." Dean smirked a little embarrassed.

"Dean," Cas sighed and Dean looked up to him rubbing his face, "I feel like I can't win here." Dean's face dropped when Cas withdrew his leg. "You want me to be more in your personal space and although I am worried that I'm going to do something wrong or inappropriate I am trying and yet that doesn't make you happy either. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong?" He withdrew his hand and gestured in the air. "Tell me exactly what to do and I'll do it."

Dean put his hands up. "I didn't mean-"

"Well, what did you mean Dean?" Cas tilted his head. "Because I have to say I am sick of misreading what you mean." Dean let his hands fall to the table. "Is it that I'm misreading you or that you never say exactly what you mean?" Dean looked at the table and Cas sighed. He reached up and took Dean's face in his right hand. "I'm just trying to understand what mistakes I'm making so I can stop."

Dean's hand came up to Cas' on his face. "You're not making any mistakes. I was..." He huffed. "I'm sorry, you're right. I say one thing and you change and then I say another." He took Cas' hand in his and lowered them to the table. "I want you to do this," he wiggled Cas' hand in his, "and this," he wrapped his leg around Cas' again who did it back, "but I'm just a little worried that you're doing it because I want it and not because you want to. I want you to _want_ to touch me." He shrugged.

Cas leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Dean, I want to." Dean nodded unbelieving. "Dean, I want to touch you all of the time." Dean looked up. "Every minute of every day I want to kiss you and hold your hand and run my fingers through your hair and leave kisses all the way down your jawline." He looked to the side and sighed. "I want to grip onto your shoulders as I sit facing you and look into your _gorgeous_ eyes, every minute I think about kissing your neck and pulling your shirt open and running my hands all over your chest and arms." Dean shifted in his seat. "I think about your hands on me and kissing you through mumbles-"

Dean cleared his throat and leaned forward so Cas stopped talking. "Cas, if you keep talking like that we're going to have to leave."

Cas slowly smirked. "Well, I do. I want to touch you all of the time I'm just not entirely sure when it's okay to kiss you, when it's okay to climb into your lap." He leaned forward to Dean. "When it's okay to moan your name."

"Cas, I swear I will put you over this table." Dean tightened his leg around Cas' and leaned back.

"Promises." Cas muttered as a woman walked over to take their order and Dean glared at him over the table.

.

They got into the base and the three of them headed for the kitchen.

Sam sighed. "I say you two have these." He put the ice cream tubs on the table. "And these." He them put the biscuits beside them." And go talk."

"Really?" Hayley smiled at him and he nodded. "Thanks, baby."

"What about you?" Bailey stopped behind Hayley.

"Go to our room, me and Dean get our time together so you need yours." He pulled out some beer. "I have some friends to occupy."

Hayley kissed him, picked up one of the ice creams and walked out.

"Thanks," Bailey smiled, "bro." She punched him in the shoulder and he laughed. She picked up the other tub and biscuits but only got to the door before she turned. "Any soda?"

He looked around and found a big bottle. "Go ahead, I'll bring it to you." She nodded and he looked around for some cups.

.

"Cas, can I ask you something?"

"You just did." He smiled when Dean sighed with a little smile of his own. "Of course."

"If Sam decided not to hunt any more..." He put his hand on the table and lightly rubbed it, he was watching himself do it, clearly nervous. Cas wiped his hands and chewed the last of his cheeseburger. "And I say _if._" Cas nodded as they both reached for their drinks and he took a sip. "What would you say to that?"

Cas swallowed and lowered the drink. "It would depend."

"On?" Dean took his own drink.

"You." Cas answered without a beat.

Dean paused and looked to him. "So, if I decided to keep on hunting, that would be okay with you?"

"Of course, and if you decided not to that would be okay too."

"But, what one would you prefer?" Dean put his cutlery on his plate and pushed it to the side.

"I would prefer that you do whatever one you want to. I would prefer that you do what is going to make you happy."

"_Really?_" Dean leaned forward screwing up his face as if that was a different language to him. "You wouldn't mind if I left my brother and my nephew or niece and kept on shooting bad guys?"

"Not if it was what you wanted." Dean let his shoulders fall. "Listen, it would be horrible if you two split up and you weren't a part of this kid's life but if that's what it comes down to then that's what has to happen. You and Sam have always wanted different things in life from the get go. But it was more obvious when your mother died, it was like you were on different ends of the see-saw." He shuffled. "Do you remember that time in the store when you were eight?" Dean tried to think back. "Bobby took you get gas and some food and Sam was right up to the toys." Dean looked like it was coming back to him. "You stood there acting like you weren't interested but when Bobby said you both could have one Sam was tugging at your sleeve asking what you were getting. He got the plane and you got the car."

"Yeah, I never understood that." Dean smiled a little remembering the plane.

"Exactly, from your reactions right down to your choices you were always different. You have to accept that you two have as much a right to chose what makes you happy as the other and that those choices might be in opposite directions. But at the end of if all, as long as you stay true to what you want, Dean, I will be right behind you. Hunting or not." Cas smiled.

"You, uh," Dean hesitated, "you're not here to hunt, are you?"

Cas screwed up his face as if it was the most ridiculous question on the planet. "No? I'm here for you." He tilted his head. "How do you not know that by now?"

Dean smiled and then after a second his brow furrowed. "Cas, how'd you know about that, the time at the store?"

Cas opened his mouth and then realised he'd put his foot in it. "I watched a lot of things when I was an angel, Dean. Do you think we only took an interest in you two when you were banished to Hell?"

"How long have you been watching me?"

"Well," Cas was worried Dean was mad, "I was asked to watch you when you and Sam started to come up on the radar but I was so taken by the both of you that I had to see more." Dean raised his eyebrows. "Please don't be mad but I went back, I went back a long time. That's why I showed you before you were born. I went back and back Dean, it wasn't your fault." Dean nodded and looked to the side. "Please don't hate me."

Dean laughed and looked back to Cas emotional. "Hate you?" He reached for Cas' hand. "You know my mom always used to say I had an angel watching over me. I don't think he ever stopped." He squeezed Cas' hand. "I could never hate you, Cas." Cas smiled. "I love you."

.

A couple of hours later Sam was walking down the hall with something in his hand. He got to his and Hayley's room and he heard laughter, Hayley snorting like she did when she really laughed. Sam smiled just hearing it.

Bailey was finishing a sentence through laughter. "... and that smell!"

He got to the doorway and smiled at them both. They were under the covers, leaning against the headboard, the tubs ofice cream with spoons in them and half empty packets of biscuits as well as mugs of soda on the night stands and the bottles resting in between their legs beside the rest of the things.

"Hey, sorry." They looked up to Sam smiling. "I found this." He took a step forward and held out a book. Hayley took it.

"'On the Road'?" Hayley looked up to him. "Baby..."

"It was in the library."

"It looks brand new." Bailey leaned forward to look as Hayley turned it over to look at the hard cover and then opened a couple of pages.

"Yeah, well," Sam shrugged, "it was only just published when this place was abandoned. I doubt anyone has ever opened it." Hayley looked up as if she had done something wrong. "It's a book, it's meant to be read." He smiled when she did. "You guys need anything?"

"Hayley, would you mind if I went and had a smoke now?" Hayley turned her head and smiled. "Been a few hours, getting a little antsy." She rubbed her hands together.

"Course." Bailey kissed her forehead and jumped out of the bed before skitting passed Sam and along the corridor. Hayley looked to Sam as he took a step into the room. "I guess she really needed one." They laughed. "Thank you for this, baby."

He sat on the end of the bed. "Any time that you need something like this, all you have to do is say. Okay?" She nodded and he leaned forward to kiss her.

"Want one?" She held out the packet of biscuits.

He took it and bit into it and all of the crumbs fell onto the bed. He looked down and then up and smiled. "Sorry."

She sighed. "How is it you make more mess with one biscuit than we made with two packets?" She brushed them into her hand and put them on the night stand.

"In my-" He stopped and swallowed while wiping his face. "In my defence, I grew up with Dean so I was under the impression I was neat."

She just laughed.

.

They were driving back to the base, they had been talking but now they had fell into a comfortable silence. Cas looked to Dean and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. Dean stuck his cheek out a little and smiled.

"You alright?" Dean looked to Cas before back to the road.

"Yes." Cas smiled and kissed him again. Then an idea came into Cas' mind and he tried hard not to smirk. He shuffled up the bench seat closer to Dean and Dean turned to look briefly.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Cas smiled and leaned to kiss Dean's neck. He reached his right hand out to rest on Dean's knee and Dean looked down before shifting a little. "I told you," Cas muttered into Dean's neck, "I always want to touch you."

Dean felt Cas' hand rub up his thigh and he inhaled deeply. "While I'm driving?"

Cas nodded as he lifted his head and touched his lips to Dean's ear. "Talk to me, Dean." There was a sudden dip in Cas' voice and it had Dean's interest right away.

"What?" Dean turned his head to Cas. "And say what?" Cas smiled when he rubbed Dean's crotch and he swallowed loudly.

"Tell me what you've been thinking about since we got in the car." Dean glanced again and tightened his hands on the wheel as his mouth opened. Cas' voice was getting rougher and more of a whisper. Dean could feel the breath on him as well as Cas' hand and he had to refocus his attention on the road.

"I haven't been thinking anything." Dean tried to say without that pitch in his voice when Cas rubbed a little harder.

Cas chuckled and tickled Dean's ear with his nose. "Yes, you have." He snaked his hand up and slowly unhooked Dean's pants button. "I know it's something dirty, I can tell by that way you sway your knee." Dean looked down with he heard and felt his zip going down. "Tell me what it is," he paused and Dean felt his breath get hotter. "that you want to do to me."

"Cas-" Dean choked on his words when Cas reached into his boxers and pulled him out. What came out instead was a loud exhale through his nose. "Cas..." And in that word Dean had admitted defeat.

"Come on." He kissed Dean's ear. "Tell me every little detail."

Dean cleared his throat as Cas started to slowly stroke him. "I uh," he blew out wondering how he ever ended up agreeing to this, "I keep thinking about..." He smiled a little. "I keep thinking that we'd go back to base," Cas murmured in his ear, "and in the main room I'd uh," he bit his lip a little feeling Cas on him looking out the wind shield, "I'd pull your pants down and I'd," he hesitated, "I'd uh..."

Cas said it for him. "_Bend_." He let the word hang in the air. "Say it."

Dean nodded. "_Bend_... you over the table."

Cas let out a muffled moan as he bit his lip and Dean looked. When Cas tightened his hand around Dean his breathing hitched. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Dean seemed a little encouraged by Cas' reaction but he looked back to the road, "we wouldn't use anything because," he closed his eyes for a second then opened them again, "I want you to-" He swallowed and Cas nodded. "I want it all to be me." Cas' breathing was getting hotter on his ear and cheek. "I'd push in, it'd be sore at first and _rough_," Cas exhaled gently in his ear, "but it'd soon be hot and hard."

"More." Cas' hand picked up speed a little and Dean let out a moan.

"Cas, I'd hit that spot just right," he glanced to Cas, "every time." Cas bit his lip. "You would be stuck," he blew out again, "between shouting my name and not being able to breathe."

Cas moaned. "With every thrust."

"My fingers would dig into your hip and pull you back every time. You wouldn't know what to do. Cas, I'm getting close." He moaned.

"And what about me? Would you do this to me?""

Dean shook his head. "You'd come but without touching." Dean's voice was rough and low just like Cas', both of them mostly breathing and soft moans. "All over the table."

"Pushing back against you, itching for you to touch it. Please Dean, let me, please."

Dean shook his head. "No, Cas. I want it to be just me." The car was hot, the headlights speeding through the night at a steady fifty and all that could be heard was moaning and the movement of Cas' hand jerking harder and faster. Cas could feel it pulse underneath his skin, and twitch. Ready.

Cas moaned. "Dean, what if we get caught?"

"We won't." He shook his head. "But that's half the fun." He swallowed and moaned again. "You, saying my name until we both can't stop even if we did. You'd just want more." He bared his teeth a little looking at Cas, sheer lust in his voice. "Begging me."

"More..." Cas moaned. "Faster." He picked up his speed and Dean's breathing matched it. "Harder, Dean." Cas let out a louder moan and looked up a bit closing his eyes. "Fuck!"

Dean let out an equally loud moan nodding, Cas knowing that just that word, perfectly timed, would send him over the edge. "Cas, just like that." He looked down, Cas kept moaning in his ear. "Cas, I'm gonna..." Cas leaned down and took Dean in his mouth. "Cas!" the car swerved a little and Dean straightened it but when Cas sucked the tip Dean couldn't hold it. "I'm- I'm-..." He closed one eye. "Fuck Cas...!"

Cas hummed around Dean as his hips bucked, he came, hard, loud and long. Cas thought it'd never stop even as his hip motions started to slow and his voice gradually died away.

Dean relaxed against the chair and when he opened his eyes he pulled in at the side breathing heavy. The sky outside was pitch black except for his headlights but the windows were complete steamed up.

Cas could do nothing but swallow as he looked up at Dean with a smirk. He laughed a little when Dean did nothing so Cas tucked him in. Dean opened his eyes and looked down before he lifted his bum heavily from the seat to rebuttton his pants. "What was that?" Dean tried to return his breathing to normal while looking at Cas.

Cas shrugged. "I believe that was talking dirty."

Dean looked forward as Cas turned the wipers on and then turned to rub his sleeve over his window.


	10. Chapter 10

**For anyone that's read chapter 9 before, I posted it too early I don't know why. But go back and read it again from where it finished. There's a little more including a little smut. Wouldn't want you to miss out.**

* * *

"Yeah, but that wasn't my fault!" Bailey pointed to herself.

Hayley laughed. "It was so!" She turned to Sam. "She slept with him!"

"I didn't know he was a witch?" She laughed. "Sam, back me up."

"Bailey, Sam would not be stupid enough to sleep with anything we'd hunt." Sam stayed silent and Hayley turned. "Right?" She smiled.

He opened his mouth to talk, taking a big inhale then closed his mouth.

"Oh my God!" Bailey punched his knee lightly. "I actually win this fight." She smiled.

"No wait," Hayley put her hand out, "you've slept with something we'd hunt?"

"Yes." He smiled worried.

"What?" Bailey shuffled forward clearly happier than she should be.

"Werewolf."

"Oh!" Bailey leaned back with her mouth open in shock and smiling. "Did she Jacob out?"

Sam screwed up his forehead. "We thought she had been cured, when I woke up she was gone." He looked to the mattress.

Hayley put her hand on his. "What happened?"

He looked up. "She begged me to kill her," Sam smiled a little but it wasn't happiness, "and I did."

He turned his hand over to let Hayley hold his.

"Well that went from awesome to sucking in zero point five." Bailey huffed.

Hayley sighed. "Well, it was a lesson." She looked to Bailey.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. The witch guy tried to sacrifice me to Lucifer." Sam looked up. "Mental, right?"

Sam cleared his throat. "Um..."

"What?" Bailey laughed. "Oh right, the _seals_ thing." She waved her hand in the air making fun and reached for a biscuit.

Sam looked to Hayley and widened his eyes. "Sister." She smiled by way of an apology.

Sam shook his head. "No, I was going to say that uh..." Sam looked to the bed again.

"I'm gonna go." Bailey made to stand.

Sam put his hand out. "No, Bailey honestly, stay." He laughed a little. "She'll just tell you anyway." Hayley and Bailey shared a look. "Remember I told you about my... problem?"

"The demon blood?" Hayley put her hand on her stomach. "Oh."

"You alright?" Sam put his hand over hers.

"Yeah," she squinted, "just got a shooting pain there," she laughed a little as her face relaxed, "I'm good."

Sam sighed and withdrew his hand. "Well, remember I told you about Ruby?"

Hayley and Bailey nodded and Sam pursed his lips together. They both slowed their movements. "No?" They both said it and looked to each other. Sam just nodded.

Dean pulled up to the base and the boys climbed out the car. Dean exhaled as he stood waiting on Cas rounding to his side. "What's wrong?" Cas stopped beside him.

Dean looked down. "My legs are still recovering from earlier." Cas smiled and pulled Dean's hand towards the base.

"They're probably asleep inside."

"Yeah," Dean held the door, "let's be quiet." Cas nodded and looked at Dean as he stood with the door open. "What?"

"Dean..." Cas moaned.

"Stop!" Dean lightly shoved his shoulders then exhaled to himself as he watched Cas' ass.

They walked into the base and along the corridor towards their bedroom. Dean leaned to see Sam's bedroom door closed so they creeped into their room not even turning the light on and shut the door behind him. "Honestly, babe." Dean took off his jacket. "I could have crashed that car."

Cas walked to him and took the jacket from him, he put his finger to Dean's lips. "But, you didn't." He kissed him quickly. "Stop going on about it."

Dean widened his eyes. "But I could have!" Dean followed Cas over to the chair where he put Dean's coat and Cas laughed to himself. "I don't remember the last time I drove at 50 miles per hour." He said it more to himself.

Cas put his jacket with Dean's and then started to unbutton his shirt "I wasn't sure about that burger."

Dean shook his head as he pulled his pants off. "No me neither. Too dry." Dean threw his pants passed Cas to the chair.

Cas nodded and dumped his shirt before reaching for his pants. "I'm going to hold you to that."

"What?" Dean stretched his legs and took a step towards Cas as he hopped out of his pants and draped them over the rest of the clothes.

Cas smiled. "Bending me over the table."

Dean raised his eyebrows and pointed to Cas. "Don't start."

Two doors down the three were back into their story telling. Sam had commandeered the last of the Butter Pecan.

Hayley looked up to the ceiling as Bailey finished her sentence then to the wall on her left.

"What?" Sam looked at her.

"I thought I heard talking." She shook her head and looked away.

The other two waited and heard it. "It'll be Dean and Cas back." Bailey offered.

Sam sighed and looked up with his eyes closed letting the tub lower to the bed. "Please, _please_, don't have sex."

The girls laughed. "They probably already did." Bailey took a drink of her soda while the other two nodded.

Sam suddenly remembered, he widened his eyes. "I remember what I was going to ask, did you two ever feel silly?" They looked to each other. "I mean you actually have to introduce yourselves as sisters 'Hayley and Bailey'?"

The girls smiled. "People assumed we were twins, you know how some people get that?" Sam looked at Bailey confused. "Like Arran and Darren or Chloe and Zoe." Sam realised and smiled nodding.

Back in the room Cas laughed. "What? You were the one talking about putting me over the table in the bar."

Dean pointed. "You're doing this on purpose."

Cas smiled again. "What? Tease you and tease you until you come harder than you have done before?" Dean glared. "Me? Never."

"You want to play this game?" Dean walked towards Cas and he backed up against the thin dresser that ran along the wall. He started kissing Cas, it wasn't romantic and it wasn't slow. They heard laughter and they stopped, they looked to the wall behind Dean and then back to each other. Dean smirked. "Oh, I have a new game."

Dean kissed Cas' neck as he rubbed the front of Cas' boxers and Cas opened his mouth to let out a loud exhale. It shouldn't be hot but he knew he had trouble holding in his noises and it only made it hotter having to keep it in. Usually they wouldn't bother but the pair were awake and only two doors away.

"Do..." Cas brought his own hand to Dean who was just as hard as he was and rubbed harder, squeezing a little. "Do you do more than dance?" Cas managed to breath out followed by a little laugh when Dean paused and pulled back.

"Oh, wrong move, babe." Dean hooked his fingers into Cas' boxers and pulled them down, coming face to face with Cas' cock. He looked to it and then back up to Cas. "Wrong move." He put his right hand around Cas and licked the tip over the slit like an ice cream, Cas slowly closed his eyes. He then let go, hooked his own boxers and pulled them down as he stood back up. Dean just stood there, he leaned forward and kissed Cas before biting his lip and pulling back, only slowly letting it go. Cas looked at him as he pointed down and raised an eyebrow.

Cas tried not to smile as he slowly got down on one of his knees, looking at Dean the whole time. "Am I a replacement for lube now?" Cas licked his lips and put his left hand around Dean before he slowly took Dean's tip in his mouth, sucking gently, and Dean moaned ever so slightly. Cas looked up and then took more and more of Dean in his mouth. Dean put his hand out, stroking it through Cas' hair when Cas hummed he seemed to remember himself.

"That should be enough, babe." Dean inhaled when Cas let him go and stood up. "What are you going to do to me, Dean?"

Dean let out a little chuckle, it was deep in his throat. Cas was driving him mad and he loved it. He looked down at the floor, smiling and shaking his head. He looked up and shoved Cas up against the wall. He kissed him and Cas pushed back just as hard. Dean ground into Cas, both of them letting little breaths escape as their cocks slid together, a little saliva transferring to Cas' own cock, before Dean put his right hand under Cas' bum and pulled it up, he had barely moved his left arm down before Cas lifted himself up, using his weight on his left leg on Dean to do so. Dean pushed him back against the wall and they gasped apart.

"I love you." Dean whispered.

"I love you too." Cas smiled before he brought himself close to Dean's face and looked to his lips. "Now, fuck me."

Dean got harder instantly, if that was possible. He grunted, lifted Cas up and, his cock dripping with Cas' saliva, he quickly sunk Cas down on him.

They both moaned and Cas bit his lip. "Dean..." He tried to whisper. Dean's lips were a hair's width away from Cas'.

Dean thrusted hard once, getting as far in as he could, and Cas let out a moan. "You're already losing." Dean opened his mouth, bared his teeth and moaned as he thrusted hard once again.

Cas griped onto Dean's shoulders and shook his head. "We'll see." He hooked his feet together behind Dean's back.

Dean let out another chuckle and Cas moaned. "That good?" Cas nodded so Dean laughed again and he moaned louder. "Cas?"

"Yeah?" Cas bit his lip again as Dean slowly rolled his hips.

Dean thrusted, again once, hard and faster. "I haven't even started and you're falling apart."

Cas swallowed hard, almost choking on his own breath. "Bring it." Cas bit Dean's lip.

Dean smiled and began to thrust slowly in succession. Cas started moaning more. "You want to take that back?"

Cas shook his head. "Faster."

Dean sped up and Cas got louder. Dean leaned in until his nose touched the side of Cas'. "Say it."

"Dean..." Cas felt himself move, using Dean's shoulder's to push himself up and down in rhythm with Dean.

"Say it." Dean sped up. They were sticking together and every time Dean thrust they pushed together and then peeled apart.

"Dean, fuck!" Cas shouted.

"That's it." Dean glanced over his shoulder. "Try whispering it."

"Dean, Dean, fuck!" Cas let his head fall back to the wall and Dean looked to the door again. "Dean, I can't..."

Dean leaned Cas on his right hand and Cas tightened his legs biting his lip trying to keep it in. He put his left hand over Cas' mouth. "Is this okay?"

Cas nodded. He scratched his left hand up through Dean's hair and mumbled 'fuck' against Dean's hand before pulling Dean's hair. Dean let his head tilt back and opened his mouth. "Oh God, Cas." Dean moved back a little, so that Cas was barely touching the wall and Cas tightened his eyes getting louder under Dean's hand, he moved his hand back to Dean's shoulder to steady himself. "There?" Dean asked and Cas nodded. Dean thrust harder. Cas reached to touch himself. "No," Dean was getting louder himself, "just me?" Cas opened his eyes and then nodded. "Shit, Cas." Dean tilted his head and then let go of Cas' mouth, putting his hand under Cas properly and Cas immediately moaned. "I need to hear you."

"Dean, I'm getting close." Dean could feel Cas' grip on his shoulder tighten.

"Cas, shit, I'm there." Dean admitted.

"Good, so am I!" Cas rushed it out.

"Say it again." Dean moaned. "Say it."

Cas leaned into Dean's ear. "Fuck, fuck, _fu_-" Cas moaned, screwing up his eyes as Dean thrust harder then started to slow.

"Cas..." Dean moaned into Cas' ear.

They both gripped the other tight, fingers slipping in sweat as they both came together.

Sam was leaning forward in the bed with a pillow over his head. Hayley tapped him on the shoulder and Sam looked up still holding the pillow around him. "They're done." Sam gingerly let one part of the pillow leave his ear and listened. When he heard nothing he let it fall to the bed. Sam caught Hayley looking at him just as Bailey started to talk, he could have sworn she bit her lip there. And he neck was red. Was she serious? Sam shook it and looked to Bailey.

"So," Hayley looked at Bailey too as she munched on a biscuit, "you weren't kidding when you said Cas was a screamer." She pointed her biscuit at Sam. "You're not," she pointed to the wall, "that bad."

Sam let his face fall into the pillow.


	11. Chapter 11

"Which one is mine?" Sam wandered into the kitchen and looked at the plates of fried breakfasts around them.

"Uh," Dean looked, "that one." He pointed to the one with three eggs. Sam raised his eyebrow to Dean. "What?"

"What is it with you and giving me eggs lately?" Sam picked it up and looked at it suspiciously.

"Nothing." Dean shrugged as Cas and Bailey wandered in after their morning cigarettes. "Don't eat them if you don't want them."

Sam sighed and wandered away with his plate.

Bailey tapped Dean on the left shoulder. "What's the skinny?"

Dean looked over his shoulder then back speaking low. "I was reading that book you gave me." He tapped Cas who turned to look at him from Dean's right. "The pregnancy one." Cas nodded and went back to cutting up a sausage on his plate. "And she's into her fourth month, right?"

Bailey nodded. "Coming up her fifth. So?"

Cas leaned over as Dean bit into a bit of bacon. "Her hormones start going crazy."

"Yeah, exactly." Dean looked to Bailey. "So, she's going to all over Sam day and night."

Bailey screwed up her face. "There's an image I didn't need."

Dean and Cas laughed. "Literally anything can do it." Dean widened his eyes. "_Anything_." Cas nodded. "So he needs to keep his strength up."

Bailey went to walk away with her plate then turned back. "Oh!" They looked to her. "That'll explain it."

"What?" Dean said through chewing.

"Well, you two aren't exactly quiet." Dean looked to Cas and he blushed. She said 'you two' but she meant Cas. "Looks like you two," she hesitated, "you know, set her off." She laughed and walked away.

Dean and Cas looked to each other. And then burst out laughing.

"What are we going to do?" Cas smiled, the blush fading.

"Right?" Dean agreed, how embarrassing.

"No really," Dean looked up to Cas, "how are we going to use this to mess with him?"

Dean's smile suddenly spread. "I couldn't love you more." He shook his head as he kissed Cas.

.

"What are you looking at?" Hayley stood next to Bailey who was sitting at the table in front of one of their laptops. "Demons?" Bailey looked up. "Hunting?"

Bailey gestured in the air. "It's what I do."

"But-"

"But what, Hayley?" Bailey sat back in her chair sighing as Dean and Cas walked in from the kitchen. "I am a hunter, nothing has changed that."

"I don't know, I just-"

"You just what?" Hayley stood. "You just assumed I would follow you like I've always done. You're the one who was dumb enough to get pregnant, not me." She started walking away. "I'm fine with my life the way it is."

"Bailey, don't do this!" Hayley turned as the boys put their plates down on the table.

"Do what?" Bailey turned and walked back, mad. "Make my own decisions?"

"Where is this coming from?" Hayley started to get emotional and mad at the same time. "I thought you were happy for us?" She gestured to Sam.

Bailey started walking away. "I am."

"Then what the hell, Ba-"

"Because!" She stopped on the stairs and grunted. "Us!"

"What?" Hayley narrowed her eyes a little.

"Us! You said 'us'." She looked to Sam. "I love you, Sam, I really do." Sam smiled the way you do when you know and you understand. Bailey looked back to Hayley. "But when you say 'us' now, you don't mean me and you. I'll always be second and now?" She laughed a little, but not from joy, and looked down again. Now, I'll be third." She sighed and walked away.

Hayley turned.

"I'm sorry." Sam said but didn't get up since she sat in the chair Bailey had vacated. "You okay?"

"No." She admitted. "Not really." The door to the base slammed.

Dean and Cas shared a look. What could they say?

"You know," Dean put his cutlery down and leaned forward to Hayley, "you'll be fine."

She exhaled and her shoulders shrugged. "Yeah."

"No, _really_." She lifted her head to look at Dean, Sam and Cas looked too. "She'll come back, you might argue more but eventually you'll make promises and you'll either go back to how it was or it'll be better since you'll both have said what needed to be said."

"How do you know that?" Cas took a drink.

"Because I did the same." Sam said it softly as if he just realised. Dean looked and nodded. Sam looked to Hayley. "When Cas and Dean first started out it was a bit of a shift, I was so wrapped up in where that left me that I made it about me." He sighed. "I should have been happy to finally see Dean with a shot at happiness, and I was, but there was a part of me that was..." He hesitated.

"Jealous." Cas stated. Sam and Dean looked at him and Sam smiled. "It's okay."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I was jealous. It had always been me and Dean, even though we spent so long apart while I was at college from when we were kids it was always us." He smiled a little embarrassed. "Even when Cas first turned up on the scene I was a little..." He shrugged.

"Really?" Dean raised his eyebrows.

Sam scoffed. "Yeah. You two had this connection and it wasn't the case of us being in a triangle where you and Cas had a friendship and me and Cas had one. It was a line. Cas, you and then me. Our only connection was you and..." He smiled to Hayley. "I mean, I liked Cas from the get go." Cas smiled a little and Dean turned to look. "He saved Dean, how could I not?" Dean and Cas' hands joined under the table. "And he was so innocent, soaking up anything we told him and teaching us so much. He protected us, for God know's how long."

"Literally." Dean added and Hayley smiled.

"Yeah. But, there was something more between them than me and Cas."

"Profound bond." Hayley whispered and Cas laughed.

"Yeah." Dean looked to Cas. "Something like that." He leaned and kissed Cas on the lips and they smiled. Cas opened his eyes quickly to see Hayley looking at them as they pulled apart. "The point is that she's jealous, not in a petty way, no, she loves you and she's scared. She's scared she doesn't fit in your family any more."

"You just have to let her be angry and she'll shout and she'll cry and she'll say things she doesn't mean. Whatever she does. At the end she'll realise that the word 'family' just doesn't look right if it doesn't include her." Cas leaned his head to look at Sam. "Right?"

Sam smiled and nodded. "Right."

Hayley suddenly started crying and Dean widened his eyes. "I'm sorry." She waved her hands in her face. "I'm sorry."

Sam laughed a little, stood, walked around and stood with his back to the table beside her. "You alright?"

"Yeah," she nodded, she looked to Dean and Cas who were kissing at the side, Sam was moving things from the table so he could lean, when Cas's hand scraped through Dean's hair, Hayley looked up to Sam as he leaned. She gestured her head and he raised an eyebrow. She nodded and stood before walking away wiping her tears.

She disappeared down the corridor and Dean turned to look. "She alright?"

Sam sighed. "I better go check." He lied knowing exactly why she had disappeared down the corridor. He got to the corridor and pulled his jumper over his head before turning into his room and shutting the door behind him.

Cas started laughing and Dean looked at him smiling. "I thought I was the one skilled in torture." Cas laughed and stood. "Where you off to?"

Cas got to the end of the table and turned back. "To get some water." He smirked and leaned over the table to Dean. "Do you _want_ anything?"

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Cas." He warned and Cas smiled before walking away. Dean shook his head. "He'll be the death of me."

.

In her car Bailey was wiping tears and opening a map, she pointed to Holdrege. "Nebraska, I'm coming for ya." She smiled as she tightened her hand on the wheel and picked up a cigarette, put it to her mouth and lit it. She took a long inhale and looked out as she indicated.

"You're better taking the toll road."

Bailey turned to look at Crowley sitting there in the passenger seat of her car and she reached for her knife, cigarette hanging out her mouth.

"I didn't come to fight, Velma."

She paused and then let go of the knife before she took the cigarette from her mouth. She blow smoke out in his direction as she spoke. "Then why?"

He coughed and blew it away. "Filthy habit." He gestured to the road. "Are you going to make this turn because that noise is doing my head in." He referred to the indicator still blinking away.

She sighed and made the turn. "I'm on my way to kill a couple of your guys so you might not want to be in the car when I turn up."

"Nebraska?" She turned her head. He clicked his fingers. "Done." He smiled. "They won't be bothering the PTA any more."

Bailey sighed and pulled in at the side of the road. "Great." She hit the steering wheel.

"Don't want to go home, huh?" He tilted his head. "The Winchesters can be trying."

"It's not them." Bailey sighed. Crowley waited. "I am not talking to you, the shit you said about my brother."

"Look, I don't care about Moose or his little calf." Bailey relaxed her face turning more towards him. "Have you seen her? I'd say..." He swished air around in his mouth. "Five months?" Bailey stared unblinking. "Fine, I have eyes and ears on the boys. If you knew our history you'd understand."

Bailey sighed and shook her head. "I wanted to stab something." He pointed her cigarette at him. "And you ruined it."

Crowley smiled. "I might be able to make up for that."

.

Bailey pulled back into the side of the road. What was she going to do? First thing was first, she was going to find something else to shoot. She pulled her laptop out and pulled up news stories. "Get it out my system." She exhaled. "I am not going to make rash decisions just because I'm getting antsy." She scrolled and scrolled. "Oh." She clicked the link. "Ghosts. Score." She picked up the map and looked to it, tracing her finger over to Nevada.

She pushed the laptop back onto the chair and set the map against the steering wheel as she pulled back onto the road. "I'm going to Paradise." She whispered.

.

"Will she be okay?" Sam asked cautiously as he put his shirt back on.

Hayley sighed as she tied her boots. "Of course she will." She let her foot fall to the floor. "But will she come back?"

Sam turned to look at her as she rubbed her stomach and slowly started to cry.


	12. Chapter 12

_Three weeks later._

Bailey swung the motel room door closed and sighed. She was covered from her feet to her waist in mud and patches of it were scattered all over her torso, neck and even on the left side of her face "I hate Utah." She shivered as if creeped out.

"I couldn't agree more." Crowley was sitting in the corner of the room peeling the skin off of the oranges.

"I just bought those!" Bailey pointed.

Crowley looked down at them. "You weren't actually going to eat them, were you?" He looked back up disgusted.

She sighed and walked to the bed peeling off her jacket, which had dried mud on it, older than the rest. "You don't even eat, why peel them?"

"Why not?" Crowley shrugged.

Bailey walked into the bathroom and Crowley croaned his neck then tutted when the door closed. "Why are you here?"

"You know, I'm starting to get the idea that you don't like me." He stood and creeped to the door as the water started running.

It slammed in his face. "I don't."

"They're killing more people." He shouted through the door.

He didn't get a reply.

"Fine, see if I care." He shrugged and moved back to the chair and pile of orange. "Some trio goes gallivanting across the country killing people," he picked another orange up, "I welcome it."

After a few minutes the water shut off.

Crowley looked up as the door opened and Bailey stepped out in just a towel. She saw him and sighed. "I was hopping you were gone."

He stared. "Velma cleans up well when she takes her glasses off."

Bailey huffed. "And the rest of her clothes you mean."

"They're after him." Bailey paused and turned to him. "They're looking for him."

"And how do you know that?" She turned towards him, hair dripping onto her shoulders. Fire in her eyes.

"Just who do you think has been keeping them on wild goose chases for the past three bloody years!" He shouted.

"Why would you do that?" She narrowed her eyes.

He smiled disingenuously. "I'm nice." She raised an eyebrow and he sighed. "Fine." He stood and walked slowly towards the window, talking as he did so. "I have a lot of history with those boys. The Winchesters." He turned. "Been a pain in my arse since they were born."

"So why would you protect him?"

"Because, against it all I actually happen to like them."

"No..." She walked towards him. "History with the Winchesters is one thing. History with us all is one thing. But why on earth would you ask me to do this, putting aside why you're asking _me_," she pointed to herself, "but why would you protect him for three years and then ask me to hunt down and kill three angels to protect Castiel?"

Crowley swallowed a little. Sam had spoken about humanity and asking for forgiveness. And Crowley had asked how on earth he would start with the things he had done. The things he had enjoyed doing. Feelings. That's what had stayed behind. Feelings.

He felt guilt and pain. He felt camaraderie with Sam and Dean, he felt respect for the Winchesters. He felt a bond between him and Sam after their session.

But above all else, Crowley realised that, no matter how many demons and hell hounds he had at his disposal - he was alone.

He thought that was the most prominent thing he shared with the three boys. Team Free Will. No matter the bonds they had, they were always alone. And the four of them were alone together.

But that night outside the bar - he had seen it. Plain as the red in his eyes. Dean and Castiel were together and happy. They laughed and touched each other. They needed and wanted each other. Then Sam had appeared with his own happiness in the shape of a blonde.

When Bailey appeared it hit Crowley; this wasn't a bunch of people looking for a shag or a little contact. He could understand Dean and Castiel reaching for each other in the night, when they were alone with their newfound humanity, reaching and taking what they needed from the other while giving what they other needed too. The next morning everything went back to normal until the next time.

And he could even understand another one of Sam's naive attempts at a relationship. The antichrist still trying to convince himself he could have a normal life now, now that it was done. Now that Lucifer was in the cage he could have that white picket fence dream.

But Bailey? Bailey wasn't family, she wasn't blood, she was a hang on. She was the baggage that comes with a partner. She was a hunter, sure, but that just meant that she was baggage with a convient shape so she fit in. If she was there then maybe it wasn't all what he thought. Maybe Sam could have his normal life with his Oedipus complex personified in a five foot four hunter with a killer body. Maybe Dean and Cas reached for each other in the day too, maybe they took what they needed from each other and gave more than they had to. Maybe the next morning everything went back to normal, but their normal, not the one Crowley assumed.

He stood looking at the mystery gang and realised he was nothing but the villain to be unmasked. An interchangeable character that wasn't reoccurring or missed. They were hunted down, unmasked, taken away and forgotten. And he only had himself to blame.

But for some reason he felt like he had to make sure that these boys and girls got that chance. He felt like he had to make sure that if anything was going to spoil it for them it'd be themselves and not anything he could stab.

"Crowley?" He blinked a few times at Bailey. "You with me?"

"Have you ever been in love, Bailey?" He croaked looking at the floor, eyes stilled.

She seemed surprised then thought about it. "No."

"Me neither." He whispered. "But I've seen it." She waited. "I've seen it on their faces."

"Who's?" Crowley's eyes moved to hers. "Cas?" He nodded a little. "Hayley's too." She seemed to remember and the trouble showed on her face. "But you're a demon, why would you care?"

"I don't care." He shook his head. "History." He cleared his throat and looked up to her. "Think about it."

Then he was gone.

.

"I don't know, man, I can't find anything." Sam sighed. He was sitting in the man table with Dean while Hayley had a lie down.

"Well, there has to be something out there or Bailey wouldn't be there."

Cas walked in with a coffee. "Nothing?" He stopped at the end of the table.

"Nada." Dean shook his head looking over at Sam. "I mean, Utah?" He sighed. He went to lower his head but raised it again as Cas leaned forward, his elbows in the table so he could lean to Sam a little as he stirred his coffee.

"Maybe she's not hunting. Or maybe she just doesn't want to be found."

Dean watched him shake his hips a little. Sam hadn't looked up from the computer he just shook his head. "That's what she was saying when she left, she was going hunting."

Dean watched Cas slide back on the table a little then forward again. He felt himself get a little hot and thirsty. What was he doing? All Sam had to do was look up and he was busted. Cas finished stirring his coffee and looked to Dean as he licked the stirrer and Dean's mouth fell open.

Cas smiled bashfully and slowly dragged himself to standing back up. "I meant," Sam looked up to Cas as he turned to look at him, "that she knows we're going to look for her so maybe she's deliberately taking cases she knows you'll write off."

Sam widened his eyes. "Like when I was trying to hide from you so I took the care you'd least expect."

Dean looked Cas up and down. "Yeah." He was barely listening when Hayley came into the room. Cas took a drink with his left hand and leaned on the table looking at Dean.

"Anything?" Hayley wiped her eyes.

Sam looked to her then down. "Uh..."

"Samuel Winchester." She warned and Cas smirked as he put the coffee down on the table.

Dean didn't even notice. Cas stretched up and Dean watched as his t-shirt lifted up to revealed his stomach and the tops of his jeans.

"We think she's deliberately taking cases we wouldn't expect. Right?" Cas let his arm fall

Dean looked. "Huh?"

Sam sighed. "Can you stop eyeballing Cas and listen?" Sam was looking right at Dean, he hadn't seen what Cas was doing but he had noticed Dean's attention on him.

"Sorry." Dean shook his head and Cas walked away towards the kitchen. He sat forward. "Cases we wouldn't expect."

"Yeah," Sam glared at him, "I was looking at this one here." He pulled up the link and it showed the cases of fifteen people disappearing while on hunting trips. "I'm thinking-"

"Wendigo" Hayley finished. "Bailey doesn't like them, they give her the heebies." She shrugged. "No idea why."

Sam sighed. "Out?"

Hayley shook her head. "No. She'd know I'd know that and we wouldn't consider it." She grabbed her coat.

"Hayley, no way."

She kept walking. "I am going, Sam. You can't stop me." She got to the stairs and turned. "Are you going to help me?"

He folded his arms.

"Fine." She began to pull herself up them. "If you want to watch..." She gasped and Sam looked. "Your pregnant girlfriend..." He exhaled. "Struggle then-"

He sighed and walked forward to help her. "If I wasn't used to you." He muttered in her ear and she smiled.

The door to the base closed and Dean sighed in his seat.

Cas walked back in empty handed and looked around. "Where'd they go? After the Wendigo?"

Dean shook his head. "Bailey would have taken it out by now. Hopefully they'll find her."

Cas nodded. "I was going to suggest that a five months pregnant woman is not the best choice for a hunter." He tilted his head as he walked to the table. "Least of all for a wendigo."

"Yeah." Dean stood and walked to Cas. "What was all of that earlier?"

"What do you mean?" Cas walked away from him and walked to the end of the table before stopping there. "When I was standing here?" He pointed to the floor.

Dean paused. "Yeah."

"I was just talking?" Cas smiled innocently.

.

"I'm not happy about this, Hayley." Sam looked to her as he drove Cas' car through rush hour traffic.

"About what?" She looked on the map.

"About you being in the car." She looked. "You're pregnant!"

She widened her eyes and looked down before looking back up. "Oh my god, is that what this is?!"

Sam scoffed and her face went back to normal. "You know what I mean. What if she hasn't ganked the Wendigo yet?"

"Either she's already had it, or it's something else and she's done that, in which case she's already moved on. Or she's gotten into trouble."

Sam took her hand. "We go. We find a motel and I will go and find her." Hayley opened her mouth. "Or I turn this car around, drop you off at the base, have Dean and Cas hold you prisoner and do this myself." He stared at her.

She sighed. "Fine." He looked back to the road. She reached across and squeezed his thigh. "You might need to pull over."

"No." He pulled her hand away. "No way, we do this," he gestured to the map, "we go back to the base and you can have whatever you want." She made to talk again. "I am not having sex with my pregnant girlfriend by the side of the road. No way." He looked to her, clearly what he was saying was just making it worse. "That's final."

She lifted her hand in defeat and smiled. "Whatever you say."

He looked to his left and smirked a little.

.

"Talking? You were teasing me." Dean pointed at Cas as he walked towards him.

Cas turned to face Dean, looked down him then back up. "Who said I was teasing?" Dean felt his throat tighten slightly. "I told you I'd hold you to it."

Dean took a step towards him, putting his hands on his face and kissing him. Cas reached up to hold onto Dean's wrists as he kissed back then put them on Dean's arms. They were grabbing at each other. Cas lowered his hands and pulled at Dean's denim pants.

"Cas," Dean spoke through kissing, "we could get caught."

"We won't." Cas mumbled and then ground against Dean.

"Cas..." Dean moaned into his mouth. Cas smiled knowing that Dean had given in. He tugged the front of Dean's pants and boxers down before wrapping his hand around Dean. Dean's mouth opened and they stopped kissing. Dean moaned still holding Cas' jaw.

"Would you rather I-" Cas didn't finish his sentence because Dean kissed him then turned him before nudging him against the table. "That'll be a no then."

Dean stood behind him, cock out, and reached around to undo his pants before he tugged them down. When his cock met Cas' bare ass he let out a groan. No underwear. "I'm beginning to think you planned this." He kicked Cas' legs open a little and Cas raised an eyebrow. Little cop fetish there, was there?"

Cas looked over his shoulder. "You know you think it's hot." He pushed back against Dean.

Dean ran his index finger down in between Cas' cheeks and Cas bit his lip. "Shut up." He smiled gently looking at Cas.

"I'm beginning to think you want to get caught." Cas could feel his pants slowly falling down his legs as they spoke.

"Is that another way of telling me to hurry up?" Dean rubbed Cas' side with his right hand as he positioned himself. "All you had to do was ask."

Cas smirked. "Would you like that?" Dean paused and looked back up. "Dean, _please_ hurry up and push in before I go and take care of this," he touched himself and moaned, "myself."

Dean reached and batted his hand away. "I'm hurrying." He quickly pushed into Cas and Cas let out a deep moan while Dean grunted. No lube. No preparation. And no warning. His eyes closed and he leaned forward. "Fast enough?"

Cas opened his eyes and leaned on his left hand. "Definitely."

"You alright?" Dean hadn't moved yet knowing Cas would need a second. Cas nodded and brought his right hand up to Dean's on his hip. "Did I hurt you?"

Cas shook his head. "No. Just a surprise." He exhaled.

"That was the point." Dean smiled and Cas felt his thumb come up to stroke Cas' hand in his.

"I'm good." He nodded.

"I know." Cas smirked as Dean started to move and gripped Cas' hip again. At first they both showed the burn on their faces, it was rough and sore. Cas' hand gripped harder to Dean and the table. Dean planted a kiss on Cas' right shoulder looking at his face.

But then simultaneously they felt it ease and they began to moan. Dean looked down and stroked Cas' bum with his left hand. "Is that alright?" Dean asked slightly breathless.

Cas pushed against Dean. "Harder."

Dean let out a moan and thrust harder. He could feel nothing but heat and it prickled all over him. "Oh, babe." Dean moaned again.

Cas looked back to see him close his eyes and he smiled. "That good?" Dean nodded so he pushed back harder. He felt his left elbow buckle a little as as he lowered before catching himself he let out an involuntary loud moan. "Dean!"

Dean opened his eyes. "There?" Cas nodded. "Right," Dean thrusted into him as Cas stayed at his level, "there?" Cas opened his eyes and let his right hand fall to the table. Every time Dean hit that part Cas could feel his whole body shake and tingle with electricity.

"Dean." Cas pushed back trying to feel that again and again. "Faster."

"Cas," Dean looked to the lamp on the table shaking threateningly, it had a wide base but it was swaying, "if I go any faster," he said but he picked up his speed anyway, "I'm going to cum."

Cas dropped his head and moaned breathlessly. "The table."

Was all he got out and Dean could feel him start to tighten. "Screw the table." Dean thrust in harder. "Do it." He picked up faster and dug his fingers into Cas' hips. "Cum, Cas."

"Dean, Dean..." Cas went quiet for a second as it all suddenly shot to his pelvis. "Dean!" Cas pushed back and stayed like that as Dean kept thrusting. Cas closed his eyes again and felt it all come shooting out. He felt a heat on his right hand but he didn't care.

"Cas, I'm-" Cas' muscles were squeezing and rippling around his cock and all it did was make the pleasure travel to all of his muscles. The lamp made good on it's threat and tipped over as Dean pounded harder, screwing his eyes closed. Dean made a strange noise that started out as a little squeak that turned into what he had meant to do which was a deep moan as he slowed down.

Cas lifted his head and turned to look at Dean, the both of them breathing into the now quiet room and they smiled.


	13. Chapter 13

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Between 'Down at the pier' and my research for other fics I have completely forgotten. My updates will be further apart now, this fic is nearing it's end. Little reminder, when I finish a fic I mark it as complete and put [finished] in the description so until that happens there is more to come.

* * *

Bailey hadn't been in Utah when the pair finally got there, she had moved on. There were reports of a slaughter in the woods, Sam left Hayley in a motel near the hospital, went to check it out and found the Wendigo. It was just a pile of burned flesh and bones in the middle of a wooded area, not far from that Sam had found a cave and when he had ventured inside he had found at least 10 people being kept alive.

He had alerted the nearby police who brought in EMTs and the witnesses were interviewed. Each of them had said that a woman had been dragged into the base, completely out of it. They spoke of 'the creature', that's how they referred to the burn victim because they were determined he was not a human, Sam explained to the locals that they had been so severely traumatised by the events that their brains would never be able to handle equating those acts with humanity and they bought it. They spoke of how the woman had suddenly woken up and attacked the creature, she had some cans attached to her, cans of what looked like deodorant. She hit and sliced the creature with a knife she grabbed from his table but it did nothing to deter it. And if they didn't know better they'd say that she wasn't surprised, as if she was trying to piss it off and then she ran, looking back to it, almost making sure it was following. The youngest boy said he swore that he heard her shout that she would come back for them. But she never did. There's was only an anonymous phone call to the station from a pay phone near the gas station three miles away tipping them off in the general direction.

Sam wondered why she had never returned, he wondered if she had been wounded or if she had ran so far she couldn't find the cave again. The couple reluctantly went back to the base where they were now.

The four of them spent all day looking for signs of Bailey and they tried everything. They thought she might have been hunting ghosts in Nevada but when Dean and Sam had gotten there the ghosts were gone and so was Bailey. Then there was nothing.

For three months they searched. Hayley was getting bigger and bigger and more and more worried.

Lying in bed one night Cas' phone rang behind them. The pair were asleep, Dean being the big spoon as usual.

Dean turned around to the night stand, as Cas groaned into the darkness, and opened one eye looking at the phone light up some of the room with blue. He picked it up in his right hand and then closed his eye again as he rolled back to lie against Cas back, he transferred it to his left hand and rested that forearm on Cas' side as he held out the phone from him.

Cas took it and didn't look before he opened it and put it to his ear. "'lo" was Cas' sleepy version of 'hello' and Dean smiled as he nosed at the back of Cas neck and wrapped his arm back around Cas' waist.

_"Cas, it's me."_

"Bailey?" The pair opened their eyes, Cas turned, to look at Dean, onto his back as Dean leaned up on his right elbow.

_"Yeah, sorry that I woke you."_

"No, its fine. Where are you? We've been looking for you." Dean mouthed and Cas nodded. "For three months, Bailey."

There was a pause. _"How's Hayley?"_

"Her and the baby are fine." Cas said pointedly. "The worry hasn't helped." There was a sniff on the other end. "What's wrong?"

_"I had to call, Cas. I had to explain." _Cas furrowed his brow and Dean mouthed 'what?' Cas shook his head and looked away. _"I tried, I really did. I tried everything to not do it."_

"Do what?"

_"You can't tell Hayley."_

"I won't tell Hayley." Cas looked to Dean with a serious expression, he just needed her to talk.

_"Crowley turned up." _He could hear the faint crack of a long inhale of a cigarette and when she spoke again she was exhaling it._ "Asked me to do something for him."_

"What did he promise you?" Cas had stopped breathing, he was sure of it. But he knew all too well what happened when you made deals with Crowley. He looked to Dean and mouthed 'Crowley'. Dean's expression hardened, confused to Blue Steel in zero point two.

Cas could hear Bailey tearing up down the phone. He also heard the odd car going passed so he assumed she must be by the side of the road somewhere, having her cigarette. _"My brother."_

Cas closed his eyes. "What did he ask you to do?"

_"Angels."_ She sniffed and Cas pursed his lips together. _"I have to trace and kill three angels."_

"Bailey-"

_"It's not what you think."_ She stopped. _"They-"_ She sighed. _"They're after you."_ Cas opened his eyes and sat up. _"Crowley has been putting them off, God knows why but now they've found you. They found all of us."_ She started to really cry. _"I have to do it, Cas."_ Dean sat up beside Cas and he moved the phone between them. "_I'm so sorry, I really am. I love you, you're my brother."_ Dean shifted off the bed and turned the light on._ "I'm losing Hayley and that's okay because she has her family now but I just don't fit any more."_ Cas stood too and Dean watched him. _"And he's the only family I have left."_

"You have us. You will _always_ have us." Dean threw clothes on the bed towards Cas and fished for his own.

_"I know, and I will always love you, Dean, Sam and..."_ She trailed off. _"That's why I had to talk to you, Cas. I had to explain."_

"Bailey, please. At least tell me where-"

_"No, I can't. I'm sorry that I have to do this. I know they're still your family, in a way. But I do. Goodbye, Cas. Tell her I'm sorry and I love her."_

The phone clicked.

"What is it?" Dean watched as Cas dropped the phone to the bed and grabbed for his clothes.

"Crowley's turned up, promised her her brother for three angels."

"What?" Dean screwed up his face as he pulled his t-shirt on. "What is he playing at?"

"They're after me." Cas looked at the floor. "It's always me."

"Hey?" Dean said and Cas looked up. "Don't. This isn't your fault, it's that bastard Crowley's."

Cas jumped into his underwear and pants. "She said not to tell her. I said we wouldn't."

Dean tilted his head. "No, you said _you_ wouldn't." Dean shoved one shoe on and then took a step towards the door as he fixed the other before stopping and shoving it on. "Sam!" Dean shouted. "Sam, get your ass in clothes."

Cas rolled his eyes. "Don't go in there, Dean!"

"Why not?" Dean ran along to Sam's room with Cas getting to the doorway as Dean opened Sam's door. There was muffled protests and Dean widened his eyes before just closing the door and looking to Cas.

"That's why." He walked to Dean.

Dean knocked the door. "Sam, Hayley. Get out here, Bailey's in trouble."

.

Dean and Sam were fussing with certain things on a table while Hayley paced nervously and Cas stood watching.

"He's not going to come." Cas muttered.

"He will, if he knows what's good for him." Dean pouted. "He'll come and he'll tell us where she is or I'll kill him myself."

"Right behind you." Hayley kept pacing.

"No." Sam stated and she turned to look at him, fire in her eyes. "No, you are staying here." She opened her mouth to protest and he just looked at her stomach. She looked down and sighed. "Dammit." She huffed and paced again, rubbing the side of her stomach. Sam missed the wince she silently let out as she briefly turned away.

"So are you." Dean looked up at Cas as he lit the candle.

"No way." He shook his head.

"I need you to stay here." Dean muttered.

"Why?" Cas sighed. "Bailey is my family too-"

"-I know she is-"

"-and so are those angels-"

"-I know they are-" Dean's jaw tightened at that.

"-then why?!" Cas shouted.

"Because _you_ are mine!" Dean shouted and everything went silent. Sam and Hayley looked to Dean and then Cas as he tilted his head slightly. "Other than Bailey, all of the family I have left in this world is in this room." Dean swallowed as he closed and threw the lighter up in the air a little, so that it turned around, and then gripped it again. "I won't lose any of you because Crowley is playing games again." He shook his head.

"Dean-" Sam took a step towards him.

"I won't do it, Sam!" Dean glared at him. "You are all staying here." He pointed at the ground. "I will find Bailey and I will gank the angels-"

"But De-" Cas started.

"Argh!" Hayley cried out and her legs slowly started to give way as the boys turned towards her.

"Hayley?" Sam grabbed her arm with his left hand and her stomach with his right. She automatically clung to him as he lowered himself to the floor with her. "What is it?"

"Uh, Sam?" Sam looked up to Cas and followed his eyeline to Hayleys's pants, they were dark on her inner thighs. Cas took Hayley's other arm and helped her up.

"What- Why does it hurt?" She was gasping for air.

"I think your waters just broke." Cas looked to Sam as she whimpered.

"Breathe, remember?" Sam asked as they helped her to a chair and she nodded.

Dean looked over the bowl, still holding the lighter. "Et ad-"

"Really?" Dean looked up at Sam. "Now?" He was a little breathless.

"Do it." Hayley gasped and then opened her eyes to look at Dean. "Find my sister." She gripped Sam's hand. "Baby, I'm scared."

"You're doing fine. Come on." He pulled her arm around his shoulder and helped her slowly to her feet, keeping himself bent to her height. "I'm going to get you to the hospital. Can you at least help us?" Sam glared at Dean and he and Cas sprang to help Sam with Hayley.

Dean ran down the hall to Sam's room to get the bag they had prepared a few weeks ago for this event. When he came back Cas was walking in front of Hayley and Sam was behind her, his chest flush against her back and his arms under her so that she could grip his hands. "Doing great." Cas smiled and she nodded. "Just like the last time, remember?"

She opened her eyes and let out a little laugh. "I was... not this... big last... time."

Cas laughed. "Okay, maybe not _exactly_ like last time." Sam smiled, a little guiltily, thinking about not having been there.

Dean caught Cas' eye and they shared a little look, though what it was neither of them had the thinking space to figure it out at that moment.

"You're doing great." Sam was right behind her every step of the way, supporting her up the narrow staircase so that he was basically walking her whole weight up it, he stayed a step behind her and they reached the top without her having needed to do very much but lean on him and move her feet.

Dean watched his baby brother, the boy he had practically raised, support her emotionally and physically while his own partner coaxed her forward and kept her laughing every now and again. And while she was going to be producing Sam's future Dean was going to go out there and make sure no one took it away. Like he had always done. No one was going to take his family away from him, definitely not a demon or an angel and damn sure not one of the five of them.

When they got to the top they helped her into Cas' car and Sam ran around the driver's side.

"Go with them and-"

"No." Cas cut Dean off. He looked to Sam. "Go."

Sam nodded and jumped in.

As the engine started Dean turned to it. "Sam? Sam, don't you-" The car sped off and Dean groaned to himself then turned to see Cas already heading inside. He ran after him and caught him at the entrance. "Cas, listen to me." Cas stopped and looked at him. "Please, Bailey said these angels are after you."

He nodded. "Yes and that Crowley has been keeping them away."

Dean screwed his brow. "What, why?"

"That's what I'd like to know." Cas opened the door and Dean put his hand out to it, not closing it but stopping it from opening properly. "Dean, I love you. I don't know what you think is going to happen but they won't hurt me."

"I know they won't, I will gank every single one of the before they get a chance." His jaw was tight and his eyes never moved from his hard glare at Cas.

Cas' arm softened a little. "So what are you so afraid of?" Dean paused, Cas could see the twitch of muscles as Dean moved his tongue inside his mouth before he swallowed. "Tell me." He put his free hand up to Dean's jawline and the hunter's eyes automatically closed to the touch, he leaned into it, his face still tight and harsh. "Dean, please."

When Dean opened his eyes they betrayed his expression, they were sad, confused and worried all in one look. It shocked Cas so much his head nudged back an inch. Dean took an inhale. "They're your family." He whispered.

"What?" Cas didn't understand. He rubbed his thumb along Dean's cheek gently.

"It doesn't matter about anything here or wings or grace - they're your family. You grew up with them and you have this connection to them regardless of falling." He shrugged.

Cas' arm fell to his neck and the movement made Dean look back to Cas' eyes, it was only then that Cas realised he had been looking anywhere but as he had spoken. "After this long you still think I'm going to leave?"

"I told you, I'll always worry about that." Dean brought his left hand up to hold onto Cas' arm.

"Dean, these angels are trying to kill me and threatening my family." He gripped Dean's neck and pulled him in to touch their foreheads together. "Our family. And even if they weren't, I'm not going anywhere." He leaned and kissed Dean on the lips once. "Except to kill them and get my sister back." Dean smiled a little. "Okay?" Dean nodded. "Let's make a phone-call."


	14. Chapter 14

Again, sorry that it's been so long since I last updated but I've been burying myself in research for new stories and then every couple of days a new one comes to me and I have to stop and cry because I can't keep up.

* * *

Sam was helping Hayley out of the car and across the parking lot slowly but rushed. He kept telling her she was fine, she was doing great, everything would be fine. She nodded along and they managed to get into the recpetion.

"Excuse me, my wife is in labour." The woman looked up from the desk and jumped up at the look of Hayley.

"Oh right," she rounded the counter and walked to Hayley, "what's your name?"

Hayley was barely keeping her breathing right so she looked to Sam as he spoke. "Henry and Violet Kinkade."

She nodded and turned to nod to one of the receptionists who phoned for a porter before looking back to Hayley. "Well then, let's get started."

.

"Right." Dean was finishing lighting the candles and moving them in position around the bowl that he looked up to catch Cas cutting his hand. "Whoa, Cas!"

"What?" Cas winced as he carried on. Dean could do nothing but sigh, it was done now.

"You should have let me." Dean looked down at his hand as he held it over the bowl.

"You know me. Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters." Dean's face relaxed to surprise as he looked to Cas' face. He squeezed his hand as much as he could watching the blood drip over the ingredients in the bowl and then he took the matches from Dean, much to his surprise. He lit one and inhaled before speaking. "Et ad congregadum... eos conram me." He threw the match into the bowl and they looked up to see Crowley with his back to them.

"I was in the middle of someth-" He trailed off as he turned around. "Oh." He suddenly looked guilty and then down at the markings on the floor. "Bollocks."

Dean held out a piece of fabric and, when Cas had put the match box down, he started to wrap it around his hand for him. "In the middle of something were you?" Dean spoke to Cas' hand. "What would that be?"

He smiled. "Hell business, you wouldn't understand." He paused. "Well," they looked to him, "_you_ might, Dean."

Dean sighed, still wrapping up the bandage. "Can the attitude." Dean could already tell from the way Cas was acting that he was going to take charge here and if Dean rushed in too then Crowley would feel double teamed and back away. Dean surprised even himself at the fact that he was actually going to take a back seat here. For now.

"We know the deal you offered Bailey." Cas narrowed his eyes at him. "What we wanted to know is," he looked down as Dean tied the end of the bandage, "thanks-"

"-yep-"

"-we want to know why?" Cas continued and they both faced the demon, Dean tried to keep the shock from showing when Cas lifted his left arm and rested it leisurely on Dean's right shoulder. "See, I can't quite figure it out." Crowley raised his eyebrows, silently asking 'oh yeah, how's that?'. "What do you get out of this?"

"Another soul." He shrugged and smiled.

"No." Cas shook his head and looked down at the bowl on the counter before bringing his right index finger up to his lip and then shook his head again thoughtfully. Crowley narrowed his eyes before Cas' left elbow fell behind Dean's shoulder until his hand softly stoked his hair. Crowley watched the movement to which Dean didn't even react. Cas was becoming more comfortable being affectionate with Dean in public but he was doing this for a reason and for once Dean was alright with being used that way. Even if he didn't know what Cas' end game was.

"Bailey get's her brother back. That's what you said." He looked up to Crowley who was still watching his movement before forcing himself to look back to Cas' face. "You didn't say 'your brother back and your soul in ten' and you," he pointed to Crowley with the finger he had against his lips before moving it back, you're a stickler for contracts. You pride yourself on delivering exactly what you promised." Cas let his left hand fall and slowly snake in between Dean's shoulder blades, Cas looked down to the bowl again briefly which meant Crowley looked back to the movement, when Cas looked back up at him however, he didn't look back to Cas. "So Bailey get's her brother back and those angels stop coming after me." Dean could feel Cas turn his hand as he got to Dean's belt and the warmth rub over his right cheek.

"See-" When Cas squeezed it he spoke at the same time, a little louder than before so that when Dean jumped a tiny in surprise the movement and speech made Crowley jump back to looking at Cas.

Dean tried to pretend he hadn't jumped a little, but damn that was a surprise and even though he was enjoying the apology rub he was getting and the slight kneading it had turned to, he couldn't figure out what Cas' game was.

"-that's where I'm getting stuck," Cas made to pull away and as he did he tugged the middle belt loop of the back of Dean's denim pants just a little and took a step forward, Dean watched him trying to figure it out, "she gets her brother," Dean looked as Cas gestured with his hand behind his back, and it hit Dean, he stepped forward and wrapped his right arm around Cas' waist, Crowley watched them and how Cas smiled and leaned into it when Dean touched his nose to the left side of Cas' face, "we get a little peace of mind and what do you get? Hmm?" Cas hummed when Dean kissed his neck once and then looked to Crowley.

"A porno apparently." They looked at him confused. "What the hell are you two doing, trying to make me sick?"

Cas and Dean turned their heads to look at each other still confused before looking back to him. "What do you mean?"

Crowley sighed. "This little R rated thing you've got going. Is that what you summoned me for, 'cause I have to say I never pinned you two for voyeurism."

Cas smiled. "Crowley, voyeurism involves sex." He laughed and Dean shook his head laughing too.

"What do you call this?" Crowley gestured to them widely.

"Love." Dean answered without hesitation.

Cas nodded. "And affection." Crowley threw out his tongue, looking to the side, in disgust.

Cas laughed and Crowley turned back. "What are you laughing at?"

Cas shrugged. "You. Being all-" he copied Crowley with his tongue, "-like a five year old." Dean huffed out a laugh against Cas' face before turning to kiss at the base of his neck. Cas tilted his head to the left so that their foreheads touched softly. "It's affection, and caring. What's wrong with that?" Cas put his hand up to cup Dean's face and closed his eyes, smiling." Crowley threw out a sigh. "It's a funny thing, affection."

"How's that?" Crowley asked, sounding a little bored.

"Because it can come in many different forms." Dean hummed against his skin. "Kissing, touching,-" Cas put his hand back and rubbed Dean in between his legs briefly.

"-oh for God's-" Crowley started.

"-even just simple gestures. Not even sexual gestures."

Dean nodded as he lifted his head trying to ignore the slight stir he felt from Cas' grope. "Like when Cas and Bailey go outside to smoke."

Cas nodded. "Yeah, if we want to smoke that's our choice but we shouldn't force it's affects on the others. Especially the baby." He turned his head a little and Dean hummed in response against his neck wrapping his arm around Cas' front more and Cas' left arm and hand came up to match him. "See, it could be anything." He shrugged. "Looking after someone when they're ill-"

"-not having sex in front of them-" Crowley gestured to the boys but they ignored him.

"-and can't do stuff for themselves, making two cups of coffee instead of one," he paused moving only his eyes to Crowley, "sending three angels on wild goose chases for three years." Dean laughed against Cas' neck and stopped kissing him, he tucked his chin there and they looked at Crowley.

"What are you on about?" Crowley drawled.

"Give it up, Crowley. Bailey told us."

Crowley sighed. "I never liked Velma." He looked to the side. "Why did she never get contacts, eh?" He sighed. "Stupid bitch."

Dean laughed. "Sorry to tell you, asshat, this one's," he shook his right arm around Cas' waist a little, "taken." He smiled. "Get your own angel."

Cas laughed. "I am flattered though."

Dean turned to look. "Are you?" Crowley rubbed his forehead, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.

Cas looked back. "Well, come on now, he's the King of Hell." He gestured to him and Dean tilted his head, pushing his lips out, in a 'fair enough' gesture. "Wouldn't you be?"

"Will you two shut up?" Crowley spat. "Stop all of this affection rubbish and stop feeling each other up. Just tell me what you want?!" He shouted.

Cas' face changed, and from the first syllable out of his mouth, so too did Dean's. They weren't playing now.

"What do we want? We want you to tell us the truth, we want Bailey safe, we want her brother back and we want those angels dead." Cas paused. "And that's just for starters." Dean's grin widened. "Before we even consider letting you out."

.

Hayley was in a room now and breathing heavily. "You're doing great, Hayley." Sam wiped her forehead. "You're doing great."

She nodded. "Okay."

There was a knock at the door. "Hello?" A woman popped her head in. "Can I come in and check again?"

Hayley nodded and Sam gripped her hand tighter as the woman closed the door, pulled the curtains and wheeled the stool to the end of the bed. "Put your feet up for me, Mrs Kinkade." Hayley glanced to Sam who smiled apologetically before she closed her eyes and leaned back, laboured breaths stuttering a little when the woman began her exam.

A few seconds went by before she stood up and gently lowered Hayley's legs for her. "Yeah, only six centimetres I'm afraid." Hayley sighed heavily. "I know, I know. Hang in there. Baby won't make an appearance before it's good and ready." She smiled and made to walk away before turning back. "Just so I can tell the nurses, you don't want to know the sex, right?"

"Well, after it's born we'll need to..." Sam started and the woman laughed before walking away. He turned back to Hayley who was just glaring at him, her bitch face trumped his any day. "What?"

She sighed. "You've already started with the dad jokes."

Sam's face went white and he straightened up. "I'm going to be a dad." He whispered.

Hayley opened her eyes. "Is this you only just realising that?"

Sam looked down at her. "I've been so focused on the fact that I was having a baby I never thought about the fact that I'd actually be a father." He looked back to the sheet thinking about his own childhood. His own father. The fire. Fires - plural. "Uh, Hayley?" She hummed an answer. "I know this isn't the right time for me to do this but..."

She straightened her head up and lifted her left hand to his face. "What?"

"I don't want to be like my dad." He bit his lip.

She sighed sadly. "Aw baby." She reached and took his hand. "You won't be." She shook her head. "What..." She squeezed her eyes and started breathing heavy. "Give me a minute baby." She leaned forward and started screaming, Sam leaned down and took her hand, talking her through it while she cut the circulation off in his fingers. "Sam, help!" She screamed. "I can't."

"You can." He nodded. "You can."

She sighed. "I'm only at six." He tried not to but he laughed. "Oh yeah, laugh, you ass!" She smiled as she screamed again. "I hate you."

He squeezed her hand. "No, you don't." She smiled briefly but it was at least a minute of lost circulation in Sam's hand and screaming before her breathing started to come down again. "You okay?" She nodded. "Can we get back to talking about me?" She looked at him. "Attention seeker." She hit him playfully. "I'm kidding, are you alright?" He kissed the side of the top of her head.

"I'm fine, baby." She rubbed her stomach with her right hand. "When I say 'fatherhood' what does that mean to you?"

He thought about it. "Well, I didn't know my dad before it all happened so I only know him as all about hunting or drinking or more hunting. Everything was about hunting."

"Right," she nodded, "now what is your earliest happiest memory?"

Sam thought back as far as he could. He remember things for a few hours ago, a few months, a few years but he tried to go as far back as possible. Then it hit him. "There was this one time, I think I was about four, we were shacked up in some apartment in New York." He scoffed. "It wasn't, it was one big room." He squeezed her hand before looking back to her. "Dad was out hunting again and we had nothing to do honestly I was so bored, Dean had me sitting at the table for ages writing my name then when I got bored of that he had me write stupid things like 'Metallica' and 'Chevy'," they laughed, "there wasn't like a TV or anything to watch so we had to make do with whatever, you know?" Hayley nodded. "We lay on the bed, there was only one and a couch, we lay there looking at the ceiling talking about everything. At first we were talking about stupid stuff kids talk about, we had a farting competition," Hayley laughed and Sam pressed the cloth her head again, dabbing as he spoke, "and Dean showed me how to make the noise with my arm." Sam laughed again. "He told me about the story of Johnny Cash's brother and how Cash always felt a sense of guilt over that. He asked me about what I wanted to be when I was older. I always said I didn't know but he kept asking."

"What did you say?"

Sam paused. "Well," he leaned down dabbing her neck, "don't tell anyone but, I told him I wanted to be a cowboy, he was into all of that stuff." She smiled. "But it wasn't true, I didn't want to be a cowboy. I wanted to be Dean." She looked up. "Yeah." He smiled. "He always knew everything and if he didn't know he'd get all like defensive about it and would brush it off. He thinks I don't know but he'd go and find out and a few days later it'd be, 'oh, I just remembered, 'member the other day when you asked me about...'" Sam trailed off.

"Even at eight?" Hayley seemed surprised.

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "He knew everything I asked him, if he didn't know if then, he knew it a few days later. I don't know where he got all the information. But I wanted to be him, but like a me version of him. Something he'd look at one day, pat me on the shoulder and say 'wow, my little brother'." Sam shrugged embarrassed.

"See?" Hayley shook her head smiling. "That's a dad. He spends all of his time teaching you, from writing to learning everything you wanted to know so he could teach you and seem like a genius to you, by doing that he taught you to never stop being curious." Sam listened to her. "And, you might not have realised it but, Dean never wanted you to live the life of a hunter." Sam furrowed his brow a little. "The family business, saving people and hunting things - sure that's what Dean was brought up on and it's what he said to you time and time again but that's more about worrying about you than actually wanting you to do it."

"How do you figure?" Sam rubbed her back as she sat forward ready to go again.

"Because," she moved around a little to get comfy, "he asked you want you wanted to be when you grew up. And not once, but loads of times. He encouraged you to think and dream for yourself." She exhaled. "There's the prodical son, Dean, and he was that kind of father to you. That just proves there doesn't have to be..." She let out a scream. "A set pattern." She screamed again. "You be the kind of dad you... _WANT TO BE_!"

.

"Who do you think you are, bringing me here and trapping me all the while demanding things when I've kept you safe these past three years!" Crowley shouted at the pair. "I was the one putting my neck on the line so that you five could play happy families and now you're demanding from me?!"

"Why?" Cas stood forward, Dean letting him go and listening.

"Why?" Crowley repeated.

"Yeah, why? No one asked you to put your neck on the line so why did you do it?"

Crowley narrowed his eyes at them. The room went quiet.

"Hmm?" Cas pushed. "Why?"

"Did you ever think that maybe I just wanted to help?" The two laughed. "Yeah alright," he rubbed his face and turned away, "you don't know much about me before I was this-"

"Except that you lived in Scotland." Cas commented looking to Dean.

"You made a deal." Dean added nodding back.

"Buried in Scotland. Was." Cas looked back to Crowley.

"For an extra three inches." Dean smirked.

"Alright!" Crowley shouted and turned around. The pair fell silent. "Enough. You know enough." He gestured and inhaled. "I had a life before it all, friends, family, whatever." He rubbed his stubble again. "I'm not going to go into details but," he paused and the pair shared a look, "I never felt... love." He stared at the floor. "I almost did. But then, she died." He looked up to them. "It was all my fault and I guess I was never the same after that." He cleared his throat. "So there's plenty more to the three extra inches story than you know." He gestured. "You happy now, can I go?"

Dean looked back. "That doesn't explain..." He looked up to the side. "... anything actually." He looked to Cas who shook his head.

Crowley sighed. "People like us, we don't get chances at normal." He gestured behind him. "Sam with his law school girlfriend and you," he gestured to Dean, "with your suburban single mum. Don't even get me started on you," he looked to Cas, "and your kind-hearted demon piece of skirt."

Cas took a step forward but Dean stepped in front of him then he took another step forward. "Now you listen to me," he walked forward into the markings staring Crowley in the eye who took a step backwards, "Meg Masters was a hero," Cas appeared surprised as did Crowley who took the last step inside the trap and they stopped, Dean mere inches from Crowley's face, "she did her demon thing and she loved it, then gradually she realised it wasn't right and she changed. She sat by his bed," he pointed back to Cas, "for months while he was all kinds of sideways," he pointed to his own head, "now you listen and you listen good because this is not a joke. An angel does his thing, what he's being told to do every day no matter what. A demon does her thing, what she's been told to do every day no matter what. Events lead them down a path that takes them to the realisation that what they've been doing, what they've believed in for so long, isn't striking them right any more." Crowley looked to Cas over Dean's shoulder. "It's that voice in there," Crowley flinched when Dean poked his forehead, "it tells you that what you're doing is wrong and you need to change. It's called a conscious, I wouldn't expect you to understand." Dean swallowed and stepped back a bit before moving right back into Crowley's space. "Meg was one of the bravest and realest people I knew and she gave her life so that we could all live." He leaned further forward into Crowley's face and snarled. "_You_ did that and I have been trying so hard not to rip your insides out in revenge because I've seen what revenge does to people and the people around them but if your little stunt hurts my family so help me I will use what I learned in your fine establishment to make sure you never forget just what I can do."

Cas' mouth had gone dry and his heart was pumping in his ears as Dean took a few steps back, out of the markings, still glaring at Crowley. When Dean settled where he was Cas caught up and spoke. "You were saying?"

Crowley looked back. "I was saying?" He stared down at the floor. "Yes, everything is different when you're in my game. Angels, demons and hunters alike." He inhaled sharply. "The fact that the five of you landed on your feet how you did was nothing short of a miracle." He shrugged.

"So, what, you felt the need to protect that?" Dean lowered his brow not quite sure how to take that.

Crowley sighed. "I'm really a nice guy when you get to know me." He grinned.

"I'm sure." Cas looked at him suspiciously. "And what do you get out of it? Out of protecting us? Hunters no less."

Crowley shrugged. "Nothing."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Wait so you get nothing out of this and, in fact, you lose a soul in Baileys brother."

Crowley paused before looking back to Dean. "Yep." He looked around. "Where's Moose anyway?"

Dean rubbed his face and turned to Cas, lowering his voice. "This doesn't add up." Cas shook his head. "We need to get to Bailey and those angels before she does. Figure it out later."

Crowley looked over. "Not going to answer, no?"

Cas and Dean sighed before looking back to him. "Hayley's in labour." Dean started.

"Probably the stress." Cas directed at him. "Okay here's the deal-" he stepped forward and paused, giving Crowley time to interject.

"Another deal Cas? I thought we learned our lesson the last time."

"Shut up!" Dean growled at him.

"You take us to Bailey and the angels and _we_," he gestured between himself, Dean and Crowley, will kill the angels." Cas shuffled where he was.

"Me?" He put his hands out. "If I could have done that I wouldn't have needed Velma."

"That's the deal." Cas' jaw tightened. "You got us into it, you are getting us out."

Dean pointed at him. "Alive."

"That's it?" Crowley looked over them both.

"And we don't kill you." Dean added.

Cas turned back to him. "What, I never agreed to that?"

"Deal." Crowley added and Cas sighed, he was playing up but a small part of him wanted to ram a knife right through the bastard. For Meg. And everything else the boys and girls had lost. Could lose.


	15. Chapter 15

"You're alright." Sam kissed Hayley's forehead. "Just keep focusing on the baby, okay?" She nodded as she screamed.

"Sam, I don't feel right." She squeezed his hand.

He looked down at her. "Okay." He leaned and hit the button on the wall. A rhythmic buzzing sounded outside, he squeezed her hand and rubbed her back. "Help's coming." He kissed the back of her hand. "Help's coming."

The door opened and a nurse poked her head in. "Everything alright?"

Hayley shook her head and screamed but it was Sam that spoke. "She doesn't feel right."

The nurse nodded. "I'll get the midwife." She closed the door again.

Hayley leaned back in the bed which was angled so she could sit up and breathed heavily while Sam stroked her forehead and hair. "You're okay."

"What about Bailey?" She opened her eyes.

"Hey," he lowered his voice, "listen to me. Dean and Cas are going to find Bailey. Okay?" She nodded. "I need you to concentrate on our baby." She nodded again. "I need all of you, mind and body, in this room, please Hayley?" She nodded again. "Trust me." She nodded and sat forward again.

The door opened and the midwife walked in. "Violet, honey what's wrong?"

She tried to look up at the doctor as she washed her hands and put new gloves on. "I feel off, I can't explain it... I just feel like something's wrong. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise, Vi." She pulled the gloves on. "You're the one that's been carrying precious cargo for these past few months and you know you're own body." She nudged the stool closer to the end of the bed. "Can I just examine you and make sure we're on the right track?"

Hayley, or 'Violet', nodded and Sam, or 'Henry' smiled. "Relax." He kissed her forehead as she nodded and leaned back, lifting her legs further.

"Am I ten centimetres yet?" She looked down hopeful. It had been a while since she had been told she was nine.

The doctor looked concerned. "Yes, you are." But she didn't look up and she didn't move. "But we have a problem, Vi." She stood up, pulled a glove off and leaned behind Sam to push a big button, a different one than Sam had pushed. An alarm rang through the ward and the room.

"What is it, what's wrong?" Sam turned to her.

"You're bleeding too much, Vi." She looked between them both as staff rushed in. "You need an emergency c-section."

"Baby?" Hayley started crying and squeezed Sam's hand tighter looking up to his face as the bed was suddenly being wheeled out of the door.

"I'm right here." Sam assured her as he followed along beside it.

"Get on the phone, tell them to prep the OR, them them the baby's o2 stats will be dropping but I haven't had a chance to check. Tell them it's an emergency." Sam and Hayley heard the doctor rush all that out to a nurse who then disappeared. She turned back to the pair. "You're bleeding a lot and we need to locate the bleed before you lose too much blood, we can't do that _and_ deliver the baby but if we delay the baby we could damage it's health since it's well on it's way. And since we don't know the reason for the bleed we have to prepare for the likelihood that it could be coming _from_ the baby."

Hayley clutched her stomach and let out a scream.

Sam looked to her but caught the looks between the three staff pushing her through various doors. That was not a good look.

.

Dean, Cas and Crowley appeared outside a big warehouse.

Dean let out a breath and sighed. He hated being zapped places. "Always a warehouse." He grumbled. "It's never like a pub or a pie factory."

"Shut up!" Crowley spat and then gestured inside. "Off you pop."

Dean glared at him. "You can zap out of here but the next time I see you I will slit your throat."

He sighed and walked towards the door. "In we go then." He stood beside it and waited for Dean to open it. He followed the boys inside.

Immediately they heard voices.

"I don't care!" That was Bailey.

"You are a prophet of the Lord!" One of the men shouted.

Bailey's voice came out low and almost amused as the three walked softly down the corridor and to the door at the end. "See when you fell, did you damage your hearing?" She shouted again. "I don't care! You and your _Lord _can all kiss my ass."

"Got your charm, I see." Crowley whispered at Dean and Dean glared at him.

"What is going on?" Bailey muttered. "Do you have more of you?" She shouted. "I warn you, I have your brothers tied up and nothing to lose!"

Dean and Cas shared a look before Dean pushed the door open and spoke. "Bailey, it's us." He opened the door to see Bailey standing over three men sitting on the floor in a row.

She sighed and looked up to the ceiling. "Never trust a demon."

"Hey!" Crowley pushed passed. "They made me."

Cas stopped and snarled at him making all of them stop in their tracks. "I might just kill you yet."

"One each?" Bailey gestured between the angels and then to the boys.

"Castiel?" One of the men asked, looking at Cas. "Castiel, is that you?"

Cas walked over, walking passed Bailey to stand in front of the man in the middle, Dean watching him all the way, he immediately noticed a difference in him. His back was straighter, his voice lower and more authoritative while his eyes narrowed. This was Castiel, not Cas. "Yes." He looked down at them. "And who am I speaking to?" He gestured to his own face. "Your vessels have confused me."

"Selaphiel." The one who had recognised him, sitting in the middle, spoke. "We have never met before but I have heard of you Castiel, many stories. And I confess I thought you..." He paused. "Taller."

Crowley snorted. He looked at everyone looking at him then shrugged. "What?"

Castiel turned to the others. "Kushiel." The man to Castiel's right spoke. "We have also never met, brother." He looked Castiel up and down. "But I am not impressed."

"Did you think that was the sole goal in my actions? To impress you?" Castiel stared down and Dean felt the panic that arose at the way Castiel was speaking. It wasn't Cas.

"To impress them, then?" He gestured to Bailey, Dean and Crowley. "The humans."

Castiel turned as Crowley snorted. "Demon, mate." He gestured to Bailey. "Prophet." He looked to Dean. "Hunter."

"Team beneath us." The third man scoffed and Castiel looked to his left, leaning down to look at him at eye level. He raised his head and regarded Castiel's stare with dislike but also discomfort.

"You," Castiel pointed at him, "you I do know." He smiled. "Don't I, brother?"

Dean was watching, his heart in his throat and Bailey looking between them. Neither noticed Crowley noticing their worry and the slight guilt that passed over his face as he wondered if, in his attempt to keep the gang and their futures safe, had he endangered it all?

"Pahaliah." The man uttered. "Hello again, brother."

Castiel sighed. "Is this what you had decided? That I have so lost my way that you," he pointed to Pahaliah, "have come to convert me?" He looked to the others. "Salaphiel, also Ezra, are you to punish me when I do not comply?" He turned to Kushiel. "And are you going to take me to Hell and punish me there?" Dean shifted on his feet looking between them all while Bailey and Crowley looked at each other, Bailey still holding an angel blade in her hand. Two in her pockets.

"He doesn't work for me." Crowley whispered to Dean who glared at him and he leaned away again.

"Is this what you have become?" He looked between them. "A legion of identify, convert or purge?"

"It is better than the fate you have forced upon us." Kushiel spat up at him. "Forced from our home and our wings burned from our backs. How can you speak of betrayal when your actions are still scolded into my skin?"

Castiel inhaled, his brow dipping. "I did not know Metatron would do this." Kushiel looked away. "He used me for his own ends." He looked to Pahaliah. "Brother," he leaned down and Dean took a step forward, "you know me, please believe me when I say that it was not my intention to put this upon us. Metatron took my grace and used it in his plans."

"He took your grace?" They all seemed surprised but it was Selaphiel that asked the question.

Castiel turned his head to look at Selaphiel. "He did, Ezra."

"So you are human, just like the others. Prophet and hunter alike." Kushiel looked over to Dean and Bailey.

Castiel looked at them. "Yes." He turned back. "Human and hunter." He looked down at them again. "I have a new life and you've been threatening it." He lifted Pahaliah to his feet. "I will give you all one chance." He put his hand backwards to Bailey, and took a step so she could hand him the blade. "Will you leave us alone?"

"You're not serious?" Crowley laughed.

Castiel turned but it was Pahaliah that spoke. "You would kill your own brothers to save these humans?"

"No." Castiel shook his head, turning back. "I would kill the men who come seeking me out with the mind to get revenge and, in doing so, threaten my family." Dean let out a little breath. Maybe he wouldn't leave. Maybe Dean was enough for him after all.

"_We_ are your family!" Selaphiel added.

Cas looked to him. "No." He shoved the blade into Pahaliah's stomach and the man gasped out, his hands still bound behind his back. "You're not." Cas withdrew the blade and let the man fall to the ground before dying. "Not any more."

"My turn." Dean put his hand out and Bailey held out a blade to him. He walked forward and looked between the two of them before picked Selaphiel up and looking to Cas, shuffling on his feet. "Will you leave us alone?" He looked back to the clipped angel he held giving him the same chance Cas had given the others. Because he was a good man. Dean and Sam would have argued for a long time over giving the angels a second chance, they would have spat at each other and maybe even have refrained from interacting normally for a while. But this was different; this was _all_ that Castiel was willing to offer his brothers - a chance to walk away. He had a new family, and Dean was more than happy with that.

Crowley sighed behind them and Bailey punched his arm. He turned back to her and looked. "I am the King of Hell!" He shouted.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "And I'm a bisexual prophet who smokes thirty fags a day. I don't give a shit, shut up."

Dean looked to the man who turned to look at Cas. "Are you really going to let this ape do this to us, Castiel?"

Cas sighed. "Oh brother, you did this to yourself." He nodded to Dean who turned back and thrust the blade into him. He pulled it out and let him fall to the floor.

Bailey stepped forward and Crowley sighed again before she turned back. "You asked me to come and kill them all and now you're pissed that you don't get to do it?"

Crowley shrugged. "No, go ahead. I prefer not to get my hands dirty. Not after last time." He muttered that last part and Cas walked to him, grabbing both sides of his coat. "What? Ah, do you really think I haven't killed anyone since her?" His eyes began to flare. "Get off me before I use you for some practice." He looked to Dean as he took a step towards Crowley. "You too, lover boy."

Cas slowly let Crowley go and he straightened himself up.

Bailey lifted Kushiel to his feet. "You are a prophet of the Lord, you have no right-"

She turned and pushed him up against the pillar they had been facing as they sat on the ground. "Shut up." He groaned with the impact. "I am so sick of you lot." She pointed to Cas. "He was tricked and he's sorry. Now," she lowered her hand, "he's found a life for himself. He's even willing to give you all a chance to walk away. Well, I'm sorry Cas but I'm not. I wasn't there in the beginning but I have known you a long time, lived with you long enough, he's _my_ brother now and I have had to watch him suffer. Living without his grace, can you even _imagine_?" She shouted and he struggled against the wall so Cas held his shoulder. "Well," she narrowed her eyes, "maybe you shouldn't have too."

It all happened so quickly it was slow.

Cas could almost hear his heart stop and then beat again so slowly he couldn't tell if it was in fact going too fast.

"Bailey, no!" Cas shouted as she raised the blade and moved her hand quickly, slashing across the vessel's neck horizontally. He tried to reach out but as the blade touched his neck he turned to look at Dean, feeling a little sting along his own neck where Metatron had stolen from him in the same, most horrible way. "Dean!" He started to push away as the blade sliced the man's neck and it poured out. If he could get to Dean and just hold on. _Hold on, baby, hold on!_

"Cas, what is it?" Dean ran forward to him, his face in worry, but he stopped when he watched the blue line snake in the air and Cas turned. Even Crowley took a small step forward as his lips parted in shock. Bailey looked, still holding the vessel as he convulsed and she let him fall to the floor when his grace had completely left him.

"I love-" Cas breathed looking to Dean with tears in his eyes when the blue line found his mouth and Cas was thrown up straight shaking as the smoke entered his mouth. Dean finally stretched out and grabbed his hand but he didn't grab back. Cas' eyes lit up and when the blue disappeared into him completely he fell to the ground, his head bowed.

.

Hayley woke up and saw Sam standing with his back to her leaning over a clear cot that was lined with blankets on the inside. There was no noise so she assumed the baby must be sleeping.

"Boy or girl?" She smiled and Sam turned his head to look at her. Her smile fell, he was crying. "Baby?"

When he spoke it was in a whisper. "Girl." He sniffed. "She was a girl."

Hayley took a sharp inhale and quickly started crying. "What?"

Sam looked down at the bundle in the cot. "We had a baby girl." He looked back to her. "I'm sorry." He wheeled the cot over to her and she looked down at the lifeless body wrapped in a blanket. She would have looked like she was sleeping if it wasn't for the color or her lips.

"Oh my god!" Hayley put her hands to her mouth. "My baby!"

Sam kept crying as he lifted the child that never was into his arms and Hayley reached out for her. She cradled the baby and Sam edged onto the bed beside her cradling them both as Hayley howled into his shoulder and he rocked her.

Outside the room the two nurses at the nurse's station looked up and then to each other. "It's not fair, is it?"

The older of the two shook her head. "The mother is lucky to be alive but no," she looked up to the door where the howling continued, "no, it's not."


	16. Chapter 16

Okay here we go a couple more after this I think. Enjoy, review etc!

* * *

"Cas?" Dean kneeled down next to him, letting the blade clatter to the floor joining the other that Cas had dropped as he slumped, and held his face. "Cas, please." His head was still bowed and it swayed in Dean's hands but he was conscious. Barely. The AC/DC t-shirt Cas was wearing was rucked up at the back a little.

"Dean-" Bailey started looking to Crowley, both of them knew what had just happened. She put her hand out to his left shoulder, the other still holding her blade.

He pushed her away. "Don't." He looked back down, his voice lowering. "Cas, come on babe." Cas' head lulled back in Dean's grip and he let out a weak moan. "That's it, come back."

"Dean..." Cas mumbled and Dean nodded.

"I'm here." He tried to smile and then he tasted salt in the right side of his mouth. That's when he realised he was crying. "Look at me."

Cas brought his head forward, starting to hold it up with his own strength that seemed to be returning.

"You're alright." Dean pressed his forehead to Cas'. "Look at me, Cas. You're fine, just open your eyes and look at me."

A few seconds went by before Cas opened his eyes, staring right at Dean and he took a harsh inhale of air. There was nothing but blue looking at him, just Cas' normal eye colour and pupils but there was something in the stare. There was something in the sharp, stern stare that was looking back at Dean, his face just as relaxed and gentle as it had been but his eyes... Dean knew what it meant but he didn't want to believe it. He knew but he couldn't bring himself to accept it.

His head nudged backwards and he was aware that he was hardly breathing as Cas' breathing returned from heavy to normal.

"We should get out of here." Crowley muttered gravely, looking at Bailey.

Cas moved to stand and Dean slowly rocked back on his heels to follow. "I agree." He looked around the warehouse to the bodies lying on the floor in their own blood. "We can deal with this all later. First of all we need to get out of here before anyone else shows up." He looked back to Dean.

Dean's phone went and Cas looked at his coat pocket before the hunter reacted, his mouth still agape. He pulled it out and looked back to Cas as he opened it without checking. He met Cas' intense stare.

Dean managed a barely there 'uh' in greeting.

_"Dean, it's me." _

"Yeah."

_"How's..." _Sam's voice was low and sad._ "How'd everything go?" _Tired, Dean would have thought. If he could think right then.

"Fine." Dean answered, still staring at Cas who's eyes narrowed a little. "Got Bailey, everyone's... fine." He was still looking at Cas. "Hayley and the baby?"

"She went into labour." Cas explained to Bailey who's eyes shot to Dean.

There was silence on the other end of the phone and Dean hardly noticed it.

_"We had a girl."_ Sam whispered.

"Girl?" Dean repeated. Everything felt kind of fuzzy - no one had died except the angels. His niece was born, the mother okay and his family was safe. But it wasn't, was it? Because everything had gone _far_ from fine. "Coming. Where?"

_"Maternity ward of County, room 6." _Sam whispered.

"'Kay." Dean hung up the phone, still looking at Cas. "Take us."

"Dean, I can't-"

"Not talking to you-" Dean closed his throat before he could end that sentence the way he would have usually. _Babe._

"Dean-" Crowley started.

"Take us." Dean repeated. It wasn't a shout or a plea; it was barely a whisper and his stare never moved from Cas'.

Crowley inhaled and stood forward. As the world around them shifted Dean held Cas' gaze. For a second he saw something in Cas' eyes. Some kind of sadness, deep sadness. Then their feet hit ground again despite never having felt them left it. They were standing outside the hospital in the corner of a dark parking lot. Crowley disappeared almost as soon as he had dropped them and Bailey looked to them before hesitantly walking away, shoving the blade in her long pant's pocket.

Dean and Cas stood staring before Dean turned and followed Bailey, she stopped and let him catch up. She glanced to Cas apologetically, guiltily before turning away. They walked into the hospital, Cas watching.

The pair got to the elevator and pressed for the third floor. They turned and Dean looked out at Cas standing at the entrance watching. Bailey looked between them then down as the door closed.

Bailey felt like she should say something but she couldn't. The ride up felt like forever, maybe they should have walked she wondered but either way it didn't matter. Eventually the doors opened and as they did they saw Cas calmly walk in through the door leading from the stairs. Dean looked at him as he walked out of the elevator and turned left towards the desk. It wasn't an angry stare or a sad stare or any kind of stare. It was just a plain look. Dean's entire mind couldn't decide who or what he was looking at - Cas or Castiel, human or angel, lover or friend - so much so that his whole body could only atest to one thing. Whatever or whoever it or he was - was definitely standing there. _Existed._

He took a right before the desk and the other two followed him, he took another left, effectively walking around the desk without having to acknowledge the nurses and then a little further down they took another left so they were back to the same corridor they needed without anyone questioning the three of them.

Cas noted the technique and how Dean had done it without flaw. Had he known the maternity ward before, had he been here before and if so why?

A case, a friend, _a child? _

Those questions raced Cas' mind even though he knew the answer. Dean had no living offspring and hunters did not have friends - only cases.

But they had, hadn't they? They had had friends and family. Love and companionship. Futures. Now it looks like Sam was the only one who could perhaps have it all.

They got to room six and Dean knocked before pushing the door open a little to see Sam sitting on the bed with Hayley, both of whom had clearly been crying and were exhausted.

"Hey." Dean quietly offered his brother who was holding a bundle in a blanket. "How's..." He gestured to the baby as he walked forward and Bailey walked in after. She rounded the bed to Hayley's side and Dean's brow dipped at how Hayley just moved her head but did not react to Bailey's presence in the way Dean would expect - elation, perhaps a smack or two. Nothing. Bailey was just there. _Existed._

Dean turned to look at Cas as he stood tentatively in the doorway and they shared the same look. Something was wrong.

"Sam?" Dean turned back. Bailey reached and grabbed her sister's hand, squeezing it as she leaned in for a hug. Seeing the lack of emotion on Hayley's face she stopped and looked to the bundle. "What?"

Bailey's face drained of all color. "Hayley?"

Dean walked to Sam. "Mary." Sam's eyes welled up again. "We called her Mary." He looked down at his lifeless bundle as the tears began to flow and Hayley just stared at the ceiling.

Cas walked over and looked to the child as Dean took a step back.

_No, no no no. This was not happening. Everything was crumbling. Everything. Angels were after Cas, Cas was... Cas wasn't human anymore and he wasn't Dean's now. The baby, Sam's baby was... She wasn't... And the pair were gone, so far gone._

Cas looked back to Dean as he ran a hand through his hair.

"I can-" He looked up to Sam. "I can at least do this." He touched his fingers to the child's head and closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply and then he stumbled backwards and the child's eyes opened. She was immediately crying.

Hayley sat up as Sam's eyes widened. She was crying, she was alive and crying.

Dean looked as Sam and Hayley started crying and Sam let Hayley take the baby into her arms.

"Oh my god, oh my god." Hayley was repeating over and over again. "Oh my god, my baby."

Dean looked to Cas who took a few breaths in before almost collapsing. Dean lunged forward and grabbed him, halfway to the floor. "I got ya." He mumbled. Cas was unconscious.

It was only then, as Bailey kissed the baby's head that Sam looked down. "Dean, how did Cas do that?"

Dean let Cas' head fall to his shoulder as he angled to hold him up. "It's a long story." He walked him forward to one of the tall armchairs in the corner. "But you might want to get a nurse for the baby."

Sam nodded. "Right."

"How are we going to explain?" Hayley looked down at her baby, eyes and smile wide as tears dropped to the covers below her face.

Dean inhaled. "We don't. We're just as surprised as them." He looked down at Cas, resisting the urge to run his hands through the dark hair. "One of us even fainted."

.

The nurses came in, something between shock and relief on their faces. A team of doctor's appeared and wanted to examine her, cases like this, they explained were unheard of. Unheard of. Sam and Hayley in a state of pure elation themselves.

Dean sat outside rubbing his hands together looking at the floor as Cas walked out of the nurses station, to the right of the waiting area, with a mandatory glass of water. Bailey and Sam exited the room as the pair's eyes locked. Sam and Bailey shared a look - whatever was going to be said was not going to be said here and that was confirmed when Dean dropped his eyes to the floor again. They walked over and sat across from Dean.

"Everything alright?" Dean asked Sam.

"Yeah. Hayley's running on adrenaline though. They want to keep the baby in overnight."

"You need to wa-" Dean stopped when Cas sat down next to him, his left arm brushing against Dean's right and Dean automatically stood up, putting his right hand to his neck as he stood looking at Sam and Bailey. Anywhere but at Cas. "You need to watch, Sam. We'll need to do a jailbreak soon."

"Why?" Sam looked to Cas and then to Dean.

It was Cas that answered, Sam and Bailey turned their attention to him but Dean didn't move from looking at Sam. "Cases like this are unheard of because they don't happen Sam, this is unwanted attention. Not only will they find out you're not who you say you are they will question exactly what happened." He inhaled and looked up to Dean. "We need to leave."

"No one is forcing you to stay." Dean muttered and Cas felt a sting. "Look Sam, we'll have to wait until the attention dies enough before we bail."

"I can take care of that." Cas stood. "Get everything ready to go."

Dean didn't look up. "Is Hayley ready?"

Sam shifted in his seat, looking between the two men. "She's in a gown. What about the baby?"

"Mary will be fine." Cas looked around.

"Give me time to go get a car." Cas nodded and Dean made for the entrance glancing to Cas.

Cas looked after him.

"Cas, what the hell happened?" Sam looked up. "How did you..." He sighed looking to the room where his daughter who never was... now was.

Bailey leaned forward and rubbed her face. "That would be my fault."

"There is no fault." Cas stated.

Sam looked between them. "Are you an angel again?"

Cas shook his head. "I have no wings." He swallowed. "But I have a grace." He felt it glow in him - it wasn't reassuring or warm. It was sharp and unwelcome. And stuck.

"You got your grace back?" Sam's eyebrows raised.

Cas sighed. "No."

.

Dean got to the entrance of the hospital as quick as he could and doubled over to lean his hands on his knees suddenly crying. His head bowed and his breathing laboured. He thought back to last night. Just last night he and Cas had walked to their room and were talking as they closed the door.

_"What do you think; girl or boy?"_

_Cas looked to the side briefly as he nudged his shoes off. "Girl."_

_"Boy." Dean smiled. "Definitely a boy."_

_"How so?" He watched as Dean slowly sat on the chair in the corner and undid his shoelaces._

_"Me and Sam. Both boys. Only follows."_

_Cas smiled. "That only means that your father's sperm is-"_

_"Oh, whoa!" Dean leaned to untie the other with a disgusted look. "Don't talk about my parents like that, Cas. It's creepy."_

_Cas laughed a little. "I apologise." He took a step forward. "I merely means that on the two occasions your mother fell pregnant she had boys. Two boys does not mean that your parents could not have girls. The same goes for you two. Look at you. You had a girl."_

_"She was part monster." Dean watched as Cas walked passed him to the side of the bed where his headphones lay and he pulled them out before pressing play. The music drifted into the room before Cas turned the music up a little._

_"But a girl nonetheless." Dean nodded slightly, he couldn't argue there. He pushed his shoes off. _

_"What the hell is this?" Dean squinted at the music, he didn't recognise it._

_"It's called country." Cas muttered and put his hand out._

_Dean smiled. "You want to dance?"_

_Cas smiled back. "No." He shook his hand. "I want to lead."_

_Dean stood and gestured to the music. "To **country**?"_

_Cas sighed. "I'm leading so I pick the music." Dean let out a laugh and Cas leaned back before putting the song back. "I think it's fitting."_

_"What's it called?"_

_Dean took his hand and let Cas pull him in, putting his right hand against Dean's lower back. __"Just listen." _

_Cas pressed his cheek to Dean's pulling the hunter's hand to sit with his in between their chests. __They were slightly twisted in between them so that the back of Cas' hand lay against Dean's chest and vice versa. __Dean let his let hand trail up to hold the back of Cas' neck as they slowly swayed to the words._

_'On the eighth day God noticed a problem_  
_For there below Him stood a cowboy alone_  
_Stubborn and proud, reckless and loud_  
_God knew he'd never make it on his own  
__So God looked out all over creation  
__And listened as that cowboy prayed  
__God took passion and thunder  
__Patience and wonder then He sent down  
__The best thing that God ever made_

_Cowboys and angels leather and lace_  
_Salt of the earth meets heavenly grace_  
_Cowboys and angels tested and tried_  
_It's a long way to heaven_  
_And one hell of a ride_

_Nothin's changed since the dawn of creation  
For you will find them together today  
And only heaven above them knows why she loves him  
But he must be the reason she don't fly away...'  
_

_"Am I?" Dean whispered as the song continued._

_Cas pulled back and looked in Dean's eyes ignoring the urge to remind him that Cas didn't have wings. "Of course you are." He leaned to kiss Dean and they danced until the song finished. And when it finished they kept dancing, kissing and squeezed each other's hands._

Dean inhaled sharply, pushing his tears away. He let out a breath and wandered off in a search for a car. A five seater.

.

Half an hour later Sam's cell rang and he picked it up.

_"Outside. I could only get a mini-van."_ He sighed. _"I'll take it back after. Hurry up." _Dean looked up to the third floor windows from the car outside.

Sam nodded. "Okay." He hung up and stood up to Cas. "Give me five minutes then do it. Bailey can you help with the bags and stuff?"

She nodded. "I'll go wait by the door." She walked over to Hayley's door and stood outside leaning against the wall and looking to her phone as if texting.

Sam nodded as Cas stood. "It won't be easy." Sam said and Cas looked to him. "Please don't just leave. You two need to talk, it won't be easy but Dean will pull back, he's already doing it."

Cas nodded. "I know. What else can he do?"

Sam inhaled. "We have to go." He walked away and into Hayley's room.

Cas ran his hands through his hair and sat to watch the clock a little less obviously than if he stood how he was. Five minutes went by before he looked to Hayley, while her head was bowed her eyes were trained on him. They nodded and he closed his eyes.

Alarms started ringing everywhere, patient's buzzers were going off, phones were ringing with no one on the other ends, machines were going haywire while the people attached to them just turned confused, pagers were beeping and even Hayley's phone started ringing and vibrating in her hand. The lights flickered and Cas opened his eyes slightly to release some pressure. Bailey looked at the blue emulating from them before Cas seemed to realised and bow his head further. Usually it wouldn't be visible but Bailey was a prophet and his stolen grace was working extra hard at low power.

Doctors and nurses, confident that Hayley and Mary were fine, ran out to check on the other patients, nurses disappeared from the station to flock out among the ward. Dean watched the whole third floor of the hospital blink on and off. To anyone else it was just haywire electrics but Dean caught it - it was morse code.

DOT DOT [double pause] DOT DASH DOT DOT DOT [single pause] DASH DASH DASH [single pause] DOT DOT DOT DASH [single pause] DOT [double pause] Dean shifted in his seat, was he imagining it? DASH DOT DASH DASH [single pause] DASH DASH DASH [single pause] DOT DOT DASH.

Sam handed a bag to Bailey and looked down the corridor. Cas cut the lights before walking to the pair and talking. "Take my hand." He said to Bailey who did and she took Sam's who wrapped an arm around Hayley and the baby. He led them to the stairwell and turned it's light on. Dean sat in the car looking at the completely dark third floor rubbing his face - he couldn't have been imagining it... Could he?

"Go." Cas looked through the glass pane and they hesitated. "I have to restore the power before people start hurting themselves.

"Cas did you-" Bailey started.

"I kept the life supports on but patients will start to get out of bed and may hurt themselves. Go, I'll catch up." Bailey and Hayley walked away but Cas turned to Sam who stopped. "I _will_ catch up, Sam." He turned back as Sam followed after them and they ran carefully down the stairs. Hayley had sweatpants and an old college top of Sam's on that was in their emergency bag. She didn't even have shoes on. Cas waited until they started on the next flight down before returning the power as he ran after them. "Hurry." He encouraged as he ran after them, catching Sam's eye as he caught up.

They got to the ground floor and Sam put his had out to them. "Natural." They all nodded and they plastered smiles on and casually walked towards the exit talking amongst themselves.

"Congratulations." And older couple smiled at them and Sam said a 'thank you' before they got out the door and made for the car sitting, engine running.

"A mini-van?" Hayley tutted.

"I didn't know how many were coming." Dean glanced to Cas as they all got in. He looked to Cas who reluctantly got in the front seat when it was the only one left for him. "I'll drive slow." Dean said into the rear-view looking to Sam with the baby on his knee without a seat. They took off and Dean looked back to the hospital looking normal and undisturbed before he wondered if they noticed the two patients were missing.

Sam looked down at his daughter. "Cas?" Cas turned around and Dean looked at him. "Thank you." He kissed his daughter's head not caring to catch the tears before they fell. "Thank you."

"Yes, thank you." Hayley added looking to him.

Whatever was going on Dean couldn't deny them that.

Cas lowered his head and looked back out of the windshield. "It's the least I could do."


	17. Chapter 17

They got to the bunker and they all got out of the van except Dean and Cas. Cas' hand went to the handle and stopped. He looked to Dean who turned to look back.

"I'm taking the van back." Dean whispered.

Cas nodded and got out of the car. Dean exhaled when the door closed and slowly drove away.

Cas looked to Bailey standing there. "I'm so sorry, Cas." She said it with burning eyes and emotion in her throat. "I just wanted them to know how you must have felt." She shrugged. "That's all. I never meant for this to happen."

Cas only blinked before he spoke. "Taking an angel's grace from them is vile." His face showed no emotion. "It is the lowest thing you can do, a dirty deed reserved for those who defy God in the worse ways." Bailey nodded still upset. "That is why those angels reacted the way they did when I told them what Metatron had done. I had had a hand in ripping them from their homes, burning the wings from their backs and they were still disgusted in such an act." He sighed, lifting his hand to his forehead and shuffling on his feet. When he spoke again, it was so different that it caused Bailey to pause and look up. "What you did was wrong, but I understand what you were trying to do." She looked up as he smiled at her weakly. "I understand the sentiment behind it and I do not blame you."

"You should."

Cas looked along the road, to where the mini-van had been. "What good is blame to me? Nothing is of import now."

.

Sam and Hayley were in the bunker, in their room, putting the baby into the crib that Dean and Sam had made together.

_"With the grain, Sam, with it."_

_"With, with, I know." Sam sighed as he sanded the crib which was upside down on the floor between the two men on their knees next to it._

_"Well, try to remember it." Dean looked across. "All those years of us sitting across tables reading books and making fake IDs, did you ever think we'd be kneeling sanding a crib?"_

_Sam laughed and shook his head. "No, no I did not."_

_Dean laughed too. "Didn't think so."_

Then Sam's face dropped.

_"You two alright?" Cas and Hayley walked in with drinks and a tupperware box. The boys stood and received their drinks._

_"Yeah, as long as Sammy can learn to understand what 'with the grain means'."_

_Cas opened the box and offered it around as they all took sandwiches. "It looks great." He smiled down at the crib._

_"I think I can take the credit for this one." Dean smiled._

_"You say that like you don't usually." Cas muttered, trying not to smile. Sam and Hayley started laughing, mocking Dean who looked up at them._

_Dean pushed Sam gently and picked the sanding block back up. "Anyway, let me show you." He gestured for Cas to kneel next to the crib and followed him down, positioning himself behind Cas. He put Cas' hands on the block and used his own. "See the grain here, with it." He glanced up to Sam. "With it."_

_Sam scoffed. "I'm going to get a smoothie, want anything?"_

_Cas and Dean shook their heads and Hayley followed Sam out of the room. A few minutes later Sam wandered back, poking his head in to see Dean hovering over Cas on the floor kissing him, the sanding block on the floor beside them. "Guys, come on." Hayley walked in behind him. "You have a room upstairs." He shook his head and bent to pick up the block as Dean got off of Cas. "Right next to my baby's crib, man."_

_"Shut your cake hole." Dean swiped the block from Sam. "With."_

"Baby?" Hayley brought Sam back into the room. "You okay?" She was rocking Mary in her arms.

He shook himself. "Just thinking. Everything's going to be different now." She nodded. "Unfair."

.

Dean was driving, nearly where he had found it. He was aware he was crying but after everything he just let it happen. No one was there to see him anyway.

"I'm sorry." Dean jumped to Crowley in the seat next to him as he looked around at the car.

"For the heart attack or for ruining my life?"

"Both." Crowley's voice was low and solemn. "I was just trying to help."

"Well, in future - don't." Dean looked back to him. "We had something, you know, a future. Futures. Me and Cas, Sam and Hayley and then the five-six, the six of us together, as a family. Now..." He rubbed his face.

"The kid?" Crowley asked.

Dean nodded. "She's fine... now." Crowley lifted an eyebrow. "She died. Cas... Cas did his thing."

Crowley nodded. "If..." Dean looked briefly. "If in future something happens and he can't-"

"What, ask you? And what would that cost me?"

"Nothing." Crowley muttered and Dean looked again. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" Dean pulled in to where he had found the van before. "I don't get this, what the hell is going on with you? You spend three years watching Cas' back, you give Bailey the easiest three kills ever and in exchange you promise her her brother taking nothing for yourself and now you... what? Feel so guilty your prepared to go pro-bono?"

"I gave you all what you wanted!" Crowley raised his voice, salvia spitting, but he wasn't shouting. "I took away the danger, as best I could, anything that was going to threaten your little dream life I took out, I figured after everything that I owed you guys that. You deserved a chance at least! Bailey wanted to hunt, she was happy for you guys but she was stuck between wanting a family and not wanting things to change so I figured give her a chance to protect her family and give her back the brother that was taken from her. His deal was unfair anyway." Dean's brow tensed and he shuffled a little, still listening. "I was trying to help, I never meant for all of this to happen. It was meant to be a win-win all rounder. Instead-"

"Everything is ruined." Dean rubbed his face. "And do you know, in the middle of all of this, if everything had gone as planned - if we had killed the angels and brought Bailey home we would have walked back to Sam and Hayley without their baby." He sniffed. "I said this, right at the beginning! I said this would happen!" Dean shouted again.

"At the beginning?" Crowley looked at Dean genuinely confused.

"Go." Dean whispered. Crowley didn't leave. "Get the hell away from me!" He looked up. "Stay away from me and stop trying to help. Everything you touch turns to ash, Crowley." He snarled. "If I see you again I will slit your throat."

Dean heard an engine and turned around to look out the back of the car as the brakes were pressed gently and headlights pulled up behind the mini-van.

Crowley disappeared and Dean didn't even react. There was only two people that could truly be. Dean got out of the mini-van, making sure he had all of his stuff, and watched Cas get out of his car.

"Thought you might like a ride back." Cas said timidly.

.

Bailey lit her cigarette and stood in the kitchen of the bunker. "Shit." She whispered then leaned her hands on the worktop before pushing her body back and looking at the floor. "Shit!" She shouted.

Sam came running to the kitchen and stopped when he saw her crying.

.

Dean nodded slowly. "Thanks."

Cas bit his lip a little and they stared for a second. "I can see it all," Cas took a step forward, matching his stance and position to Dean, much like a stand off, "exactly how this is all going to play out."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Cas looked behind Dean a little along the dead, wet road, only briefly before catching Dean's eye again. "You are going to completely freeze me out; you won't talk to me like you usually do, I've noticed that 'babe' has already been forgotten, you will physically get further and further away from me. In the hospital you couldn't even let me sit next to you, driving to the base you were uneasy with me in shotgun and right now the thought of getting in the car with me and driving back just the two of us makes you want to try walking it." Dean just waited. "We'll go back to base - you'll get further and further across the base to me, your words will become less and less and the ones that do remain will be harsh and nothing more than is needed. I would even venture a little hunch that you will never sleep in your bed ever again."

"Our-" Dean cut himself off midway through correcting Cas.

"But it's not anymore, is it? Because you've decided we're through."

"_I_ have?" Dean put his hand to his chest. "Well, now that you've already mapped out what I'm going to do, what about you?"

"Me?" Dean nodded sharply. "Three years ago I would have tossed you the keys to the car and watched you drive away." Dean nodded. "But three _hours_ ago I would have pulled you close and made you look at me, made you talk to me, stopped you pulling away from me and cried with you." Dean could feel his eyes burn. "I would have done anything I could to convince you that I was still me."

Dean thought about every argument they had ever had, every time Dean had stood his ground and waited for Cas to show him that he was just as willing to close the gap, do half the work, make the effort to save what they had. And every time that Dean had hoped against everything that Cas would do just that. And here they were both standing their ground. Dean couldn't tell what he hoped. He only knew two things.

One - his legs felt like jelly.

And Two - he was dying inside.

"And now?" Dean managed to get out.

"Now." Cas said before looking at Dean and taking a step towards him. He slowly raised his hand to show him offering Dean the keys. "Now I will do whatever you want me to."

Dean stared at him. "What does that even mean, Cas?

Cas lowered his hand. "It means if you want me to give you the keys and go then I will, if you want me to stay I will."

Dean shook his head. "That is the biggest cop out I've ever heard." Cas' brow dipped. "We're up shit creek without paddles and you want me to decide. Grow a spine, Cas." Dean looked to the van.

"I do not wish to distress you further."

Dean looked back to him. "You don't wish to distress me further." He shook his head and laughed a little. "Good job convincing me that you are still Cas." He went to walk passed Cas and Cas turned to look at him.

"I am."

Dean turned, face impossibly close to Cas', anger in his eyes. "No." He shook his head. "No you're not." Dean's face softened when Cas' face contorted into what could be misconstrued as hurt. If he could hurt.

He looked down. "I suppose you are correct."

"You're damn right I am." Dean leaned back a little as Cas met his eyes again. "_My_ Cas loves cheeseburgers and beer, being the little spoon and Steppenwolf. _My_ Cas sings Bon Jovi and drinks coffee with three sugars. _My_ Cas calls me out on my bullshit and tells me exactly how he feels. _My_ Cas..." He stopped, his throat closing and Cas' head lifted properly. "_My_ Cas fights for what he wants." Dean pushed away again.

Cas followed him. "Dean." He didn't get an answer so he pulled at his arm. "Dean!" Dean shrugged him off so he grabbed him and threw him up against the side of his car.

Dean looked over his face. He was heavy breathing and his eyes seems to burn into Dean's. "What's wrong Cas?" Dean moved close to Cas' face and Cas, mouth clamped closed, followed his movements with his eyes. "Are you angry?"


	18. Chapter 18

Nothing.

"Cas?" Dean lowered his head. "Or maybe it's Castiel now. I asked you a question, are you angry?"

"Yes." Cas said.

"Can you even get angry. _Castiel_?" Dean punctuated the name.

"Yes." Cas said a little louder.

"I don't know, Castiel, I think you don't feel at all-" Dean was cut off when Cas grabbed his shirt under the neck and stared at him with nothing but venom in his eyes.

"I still feel, Dean!" Dean looked between his lips and his eyes. His words came out with a rasp but without the punctuation of hate, that venom didn't seem to be aimed at Dean. "I'm angry. I am," He closed his eyes to the next words, "_so_ angry," he shook his head, "because my future has been taken away from me." He didn't open his eyes but lowered his voice. "You say that I don't feel anymore, that I'm not the same Cas, but I know I feel because right now I'm in _pain_." His voice broke ever so slightly as if he was doing his damnedest to control it. Dean looked over his face as his features tensed a little.

"Look at me." Dean whispered. He had to see it for himself. "Cas, open your eyes, I want to see your eyes when you talk."

Cas opened his eyes and they glistened in the moonlight with the threat of tears.

Dean's breathing caught a little. Yeah, yeah that was pain alright. "Why are you in pain?"

Cas inhaled as if the very question cut him. "Because," he paused and Dean saw him swallow, when he spoke his voice got more and more laced with emotion, "because I had a choice. I chose you. I didn't want to go back, to Heaven or being an angel, I wanted to be with you." He looked down and closed his eyes. Dean saw the tears fall onto his coat and the mere sight stung at the back of Dean's own eyes and throat. "Now, I don't have a choice. And I've just lost the one person I love more than anything in the universe." His hands loosened on Dean's coat.

"Look at me, Cas." Dean used his right hand to tips Cas' chin up. Cas' eyes were closed. "Cas."

Cas opened his eyes, they were red and puffy and Cas bit his bottom lip, he seemed about ready to say something else so Dean waited.

"And even though I know that you're gonna pull away from me and," he stuttered, "and eventually we'll be just friends again, if I'm lucky. If I'm not then I guess we'll just people who had a connection one time." he inhaled and exhaled audibly, Dean feeling it on his chin and neck. "I know that and I will still go back to the base and go through it all because I couldn't handle not being with you for as long as you'll let me."

He closed his eyes and Dean put his arms around his shoulders pulling him in to his chest. He buried half his face into Dean's chest and it was a few seconds before Dean spoke. "That's my Cas." The worlds made Cas' brows dip upwards as if the very sentence repaired something inside of him. Dean placed a shakey kiss to Cas' forehead and hugged him tighter.

.

Sam was sitting in the main room with his daughter in his arms watching her suck from the bottle with her eyes closed. He smiled wondering if she was even awake.

Hayley sat next to him smiling fondly. Bailey stood across from them piling books into her arms. Hayley looked up when she dropped one. "Bailey, wha-" She put her left arm on the table in front of the baby to stop the books sliding towards her.

"Sorry." Bailey mumbled pulling them towards her, she looked up to Sam before turning and walking to pick up the book she dropped and more from the shelf.

Sam sat up with the baby and twisted his head to look at some of the titles.

_'Celestial Beings and Where To Find Them', 'Dante forgot to look up', 'Angels: Separating fact from fiction', 'Wings, grace but no face'._

"What is all this?" Hayley stood up fixing the books and looking at some herself. She looked up as Bailey dumped more on the table, in a pile this time, and began organising them. "Angels?"

"I can fix this." Bailey started looking over the books and putting them in piles.

"Bailey-" Sam started, putting the bottle on the table as his daughter pushed it away and then her face began to contort softly. He put her to his shoulder over the cloth already draped there and rubbed her back.

"This is my fault, Sam." Bailey stated. "And I'm going to fix it. I'm not gonna be the one to do that to them." She shook her head. "Nu-uh, not this hunter." She placed one book on a pile in a rush and it sent the lot over the side of the table and to the floor. She raised her hand as the tears began as if she was going to slam her fist into the table but paused and let it slowly lower to the table top remembering the baby. Hayley looked to Sam as she ran around the table as Bailey started crying. "I didn't mean to." She sobbed as she turned to Hayley and wrapped her arms around Hayley's waist. "I'm sorry!"

"I know." Hayley stroked her hair. "I know, chick."

The only sounds in the base were the echoes of Bailey's sobbing, Hayley's soft murmurs, Sam pacing rubbing his daughter's back and her soft burps.

.

Cas was driving his car back to the base. If you were there you could have felt the effort both of them were putting in not to look at each other.

"I don't know how this is going to work, Cas." Cas looked to Dean as he spoke. "But, I'll be damned if I'm not gonna try." He turned to look at Cas. "If that's what you want?"

Cas nodded and looked back to the road. "I just want you."

Dean nodded too and felt himself well up again, he tried not to but he couldn't help it. He pressed his lips together and looked up trying to stop it. Cas looked at him. His eyes seemed to want to close and clear the water from his vision but all he could feel was his chest swelling with hurt. He let them close and leaned forward to put his hands on the dash and his forehead on them.

"Dean?" Cas looked between him and the road.

Dean let himself cry without silencing it. He never had to with Cas. Cas pulled in at the road and got out of the car. He ran around the hood and opened Dean's door before leaning down and pulling Dean to him. Dean let himself tilt around towards Cas' body and Cas' throat burned as he wrapped his arms around Dean's body and the man buried his face in Cas' shirt as he grabbed at it weakly with his hands.

"How'd-"

"Shh." Cas brought his hand up and cupped Dean's face feeling it damp, he stroked the cheek with his thumb.

"How'd you know I know," he inhaled a cry, "morse code?"

Cas smiled with his eyes closed and the right side of his face against Dean's temple. "I didn't. I hoped."

Dean nodded into Cas' chest. "I love you, too, Cas." Cas sighed with almost painful relief and hugged Dean tighter to him.

.

"You know," Sam walked back into the main room with a baby monitor on a cord of leather around his neck, "when Dean and Cas first got together it was such a shock but at the same time it was so obvious."

He walked to his chair again and Bailey looked up from one of her books. "How'd you mean?" She picked up her lighter and relit her cigarette.

"What were they like before?" Hayley added.

Sam sighed and rubbed his face. "Well, all of my life all I remember is Dad getting in the car or closing the motel room door behind him after telling Dean to look after me. And that's all we knew, I didn't even know what Dad did, they hid it from me. Eventually Dean had to tell me and as we grew up it became a family business, just like a lawyers office - John Winchester and Sons." He laughed a little and Bailey blew smoke out, listening. "But it was never what I wanted. Dean, he idolized Dad, I suppose he remembers him before Mom died but..." Sam inhaled, a little annoyed, "he never questioned him. He did everything Dad told him because Dad told him to. He never thought for himself." Sam's face relaxed and he moved in his seat. "Anyway when I was just a teenager I told them I didn't want do it, Dad flipped, going on about loyalty and the family business. About how I was disrespecting Mom's memory." Sam shook his head. "Your parents are supposed to encourage you to be you, I was just a worker to him. So I left." They paused when they heard gurgling on the monitor and the light came on for a few seconds before it stopped again. "I went to Stanford and then Dean turned up one night, Dad's missing, expected me to just up and hit the road again."

"Did you?"

Sam nodded. "Eventually. I said I would just for a couple of days and then shit happened and that bastard took Jess too." Hayley reached forward and squeezed Sam's knee softly and reassuringly. "So we hit the road for the long haul. But Dean, he hadn't really changed. He was like he had always been, Dad was to be listened to and never questioned. He had his car, his collection of mullet rock and his charm." He laughed and looked to Bailey. "Honestly, you two would have been a force to be reckoned with, walking into bars and walking out with a chick on each arm."

Bailey laughed. "Was he that bad?"

"Oh yeah." Sam's brow dipped. "Oh God, yeah." He rubbed his face. "Dean Winchester was the straightest man in all of America, I mean he was goofy and a total jerk but even the mention of anything not kosher and he squirmed and ran."

"So what changed?" Hayley stood up and walked towards Sam, turning to sit on his knee.

"Honestly? I don't know." He rubbed his right hand up her back and his left on the slight bump that was left on her stomach. "Dean was different after Hell, I always thought it was just because well, he'd been to Hell and I know that had changed him but maybe it wasn't just that. I mean, he found out that Angels and God existed. Of all of the things we'd encountered we had never had dealings with them before. I think Dean's whole world was shaken. And then a hundred other worms came out of that can. Michael, Lucifer - everything. But, like Cas said, they always had a different bond." He smiled. "I remember I stormed out of the motel room, nearly four years ago now, I got to the end of the street, rounded the corner and just leaned against the wall. I didn't like leaving him just as much as he didn't like leaving me but I needed space. What could I do? So I called Cas."

"What for?" Bailey put her cigarette out and waved her hand into the smoke.

"I knew that Dean needed someone, he needed a friend and I needed someone to be there for him. Keep him out of danger. I didn't even have to explain, I just said I needed space but Dean needed a friend and Cas just said 'where is he, what's the address?'" Sam smiled.

"That was it? No, why the hell is it my problem, kinda got some of my own, kinda a long way now I'm earth bound?" Bailey raised her eyebrows when Sam shook his head, she could feel her eyes burn again. What had she done?

"At first it was a bit weird, seeing them like that but you've seen how happy they are." He smiled to Hayley.

"Were." Bailey corrected.

"To be honest I felt left out." Sam admitted, ignoring Bailey for no reason other than she was right. "I thought, okay great now there's a mini-Dean. I joked that Dean should get his gold star." They looked at him. "Pinocchio? You know, Jiminy asks if he gets one for looking after Pinocchio and gets one at the end 'cause he guided him to become a real boy?" Hayley smiled.

"You are such a dork." Bailey laughed and lit another cigarette.

"Bailey can you...?" Hayley gestured to the cigarette.

She realised. "Oh right, yeah sorry." She stood, going to walk to the entrance and stopped. "Was that the end?"

"I was just going to say that I got it mixed up, I think Cas was Dean's guide. I think Cas gave Dean the gift of life, not just literally."


End file.
